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Blog post
Why COVID-19 offers the perfect opportunity to remove fuel subsidies
April 2020 recorded the lowest oil price ( USD 21/barrel of oil) in 18 years. This was driven by a lack of demand due to low economic activity worldwide. This temporary season of low oil prices presents an opportune moment for countries to remove inefficient fuel subsidies and reduce the knock-on effect to citizens. This reform also provides developing country governments...
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Blog post
Rethinking regulations: Informal settlements in the time of COVID-19
Informal settlements, given their high densities and lacking water and sanitation infrastructure, are potential hotspots for the spread of pandemics like COVID-19. To remedy this, upgrading informal settlements will be essential. However, for long term resilience, we need to tackle the regulatory challenges that keep formal housing prices unattainable for the urban...
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Blog post
Ideas Matter: Why does democracy matter for growth?
According to Freedom House, some African nations, such as Ethiopia and Angola, made important strides toward becoming democracies in 2019, but overall progress on the continent was offset by increasing restrictions elsewhere. Why does this matter for growth and development? The reasons are complicated and manifold, but evidence suggests that the increased accountability...
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Blog post
Ideas Matter: Providing a big push towards women empowerment
In 2030, six percent of the world population could still be living in extreme poverty. This would be in spite of all the effort that is being made to achieve the first sustainable development goal of eradication of all forms of poverty. Presently, over 730 million people live in extreme poverty i.e below the international poverty line of $1.9 a day. In his book...
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Blog post
Ideas matter: Celebrating 50 years of development economics research
Since the IGC was founded a bit more than 10 years ago, the organisation has supported many projects and researchers that gave rise to transformational ideas in the field of economic development and growth. We are today publishing The Little Book of Growth Ideas presenting a selection of these growth ideas. Given the ongoing crisis related to COVID-19, these ideas remain...
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Blog post
Pass-through shocks and income: The impact of COVID-19 on remittances in Ethiopia
Following COVID-19 induced global restrictions on the movement of people and activities, the Ethiopian economy, particularly the external sector, has faced significant challenges. COVID-19 related global disruptions have considerably affected tourism, exports, imports, and remittances to the country. The Population Division of the UN Department of Economic and Social...
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Blog post
Crime and COVID-19: Lessons from Cape Town and Karachi
The COVID-19 pandemic is a stark reminder of how vulnerable cities in the global South are to devastation by contagion due to poorly managed population density, resource deprivation, and maladministration. However, there is another epidemic that has been harming these cities for much longer: urban violence. The cities of Cape Town and Karachi, both historically plagued by...
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Blog post
The dangers of not knowing enough about COVID-19’s impact on women in Pakistan
The Government of Pakistan has begun publishing gender-disaggregated data on COVID-19 at a national level. One graph on the government’s Covid-19 website illustrates that men constitute 74% of observed cases so far (as of June 29th 2020). This is a significant aberration compared to worldwide trends and is one of the highest proportions globally. A WHO report on Gender...
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Blog post
Closing gender gaps in Bihar: Examining the state’s budgets for women and girls
Economic growth unaccompanied by inclusive, equitable and sustainable growth can not only exacerbate future gender equality outcomes, but also prove regressive by pushing progress on gender equality back. In Bihar, a state that has witnessed a steady and high economic growth over the last decade, we look at how much budgets are being allocated to achieve gender equality and...
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Blog post
In defence of density
At their core, cities are absences of space between people. You can call it density, closeness, or proximity; it is the opposite of distance. The on-going COVID-19 pandemic has brought this core feature of cities under question. But this criticism paints with a broad brush: what matters are the type of density and the way it is managed. The type of density Density alone...
Blog post
Rethinking regulations: Informal settlements in the time of COVID-19
Informal settlements, given their high densities and lacking water and sanitation infrastructure, are potential hotspots for the spread of pandemics like COVID-19. To remedy this, upgrading informal settlements will be essential. However, for long term resilience, we need to tackle the regulatory challenges that keep formal housing prices unattainable for the urban...