-
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...
-
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...
-
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...
-
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...
-
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...
-
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...
-
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
COVID-19 in Tanzania: Is business as usual response enough?
Tanzania’s unconventional approach to COVID-19 may be slow in response and may lack direction, but its uniqueness illustrates the need for governments to form context-specific smart containment strategies and recovery plans. To maintain multiple competing priorities, the Tanzanian government can increase public health funding to local health centres to implement mass...
-
Blog post
How clean hands can save lives during the COVID-19 pandemic
Handwashing with soap is the first line of defence against COVID-19. But without active support to improve water, sanitation and hygiene, the world is much more likely to experience prolonged and repeated pandemics. On June 1st, 9-year-old Stephen Wamukota received the Kenyan presidential award for inventing a pedal-operated hand-washing machine. The contraption, fashioned...
-
Blog post
Using e-governance data to improve public service delivery: Evidence from land record changes in Bangladesh
Improving monitoring and evaluation information flows in government bureaucracies can improve service delivery even without explicit incentive structures Studies have shown that better incentive structures for civil servants improve the way they provide public services (Finan et al. 2017). However, due to political constraints it is often difficult to introduce...
Blog post
Agricultural value chain finance can help drive Myanmar’s agricultural growth
Surrounded by some of the largest consumer markets in the world, at the nexus of important trade routes, and with its own growing consumer markets, Myanmar has tremendous potential as an agricultural producer. Yet one persistent obstacle is the agricultural sector’s lack of access to financial services, which can drive productivity and growth. Myanmar’s financial...