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Blog post
Herbert M’cleod: The man behind the scenes, striving for peace
IGC Sierra Leone and Liberia Country Director Herbert M’cleod passed away on 19 May 2022. Professor Rachel Glennerster, Lead Academic in the IGC Sierra Leone programme until 2017, when she was appointed Chief Economist at the UK Department for International Development (now FCDO), pens a tribute to her long-time friend and mentor. Sierra Leone, the African continent, and...
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Blog post
Overcoming barriers to access and agency for women entrepreneurs in India
Despite various policies aimed at fostering women entrepreneurship in India, few women-led businesses reach the same scale as their male counterparts. Traditional gender roles often inhibit women’s agency, risk-taking, and decision making in business, thereby necessitating policies that are specifically aimed at helping women achieve their entrepreneurial potential. In...
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Blog post
How clean energy can empower women in rural communities
Developing a gender-inclusive clean energy sector can empower women in rural communities as both consumers and producers of clean energy and help facilitate the transition towards a greener and more sustainable future. Supporting women’s advancement in the sector requires targeted policy focusing on increasing access to credit, training and skill development, education,...
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Blog post
Gender equality through secondary education in sub-Saharan Africa
Early marriage and pregnancy can be detrimental to women’s health, agency, and labour market outcomes. However, compelling evidence from sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) shows that each additional year of secondary education mitigates these risks in both the short- and long-term. Over the last two decades, SSA has made enormous progress in increasing access to schooling in...
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Blog post
Can internet access lead to improved economic outcomes?
The Infra4Dev Conference, jointly organised by the World Bank and the International Growth Centre on March 3rd-4th 2022, brought together the academic and policy-making community to exchange knowledge and insights regarding the roles that infrastructure can play in catalysing development. Professor Jonas Hjort (Columbia University and University College London) provided the...
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Blog post
Addressing gender-based violence through public health: Evidence from India
The framing of violence against women as a public health issue allows for more robust multi-disciplinary interventions through the healthcare sector and necessitates analysis of the sector’s capacity to recognise, intervene, and prevent GBV. Gender-based violence (GBV) is recognised as a complex health problem rooted in patriarchal social norms and the economic...
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Blog post
Progressing female labour force participation in Bangladesh
Despite impressive achievements in schooling and microfinance for women, Bangladesh still has low female labour force participation. Data from rural Bangladesh suggests that strengthening agro-processing may increase female employment and productivity. The success story of Bangladesh in advancing opportunities for women is well known. By 2015, Bangladesh became one of...
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Blog post
How much do we know about the development impacts of energy infrastructure?
The Infra4Dev Conference, jointly organized by the World Bank and the International Growth Centre on March 3rd-4th 2022, brought together the academic and policy-making community to exchange knowledge and insights regarding the different roles that infrastructure can play in catalysing development. Professor Kelsey Jack, of the University of California at Santa Barbara,...
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Blog post
Gender and public service provision: Evidence from Sierra Leone
A field experiment in Freetown, Sierra Leone, shows how a concentration of wealth in favour of men could lead to the provision of public goods preferred by men. This implies that wealth disparity between men and women can have gendered spillover effects for political participation and the demand for public services. In 2020, women made up 50% of the population in...
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Blog post
The gender imbalances in Ethiopia’s dairy value chains
Traditional gender roles that often inhibit women’s agency and access to resources also have the ability to affect their roles in employment. We study the gendered division of labour in dairy value chains in Ethiopia to examine the activities that women are involved in and how involvement differs across farms. Our results show that as dairy farms increase in size and gain...
Blog post
Overcoming barriers to access and agency for women entrepreneurs in India
Despite various policies aimed at fostering women entrepreneurship in India, few women-led businesses reach the same scale as their male counterparts. Traditional gender roles often inhibit women’s agency, risk-taking, and decision making in business, thereby necessitating policies that are specifically aimed at helping women achieve their entrepreneurial potential. In...