
The IGC Blog: A year in review
With 2024 coming to a close, IGC colleagues and collaborators reflect on this year's blogs, sharing their highlights and reading recommendations.
How religion can encourage women to conserve water in Jordan
Authors: Giulia Buccione et al. (PhD Candidate, Economics, Brown University) 13 March 2024

Oliver Hanney and Paola Davila (Managing Editor and Deputy Managing Editor, VoxDev):
“Understanding how countries can best respond to water shortages will be critical as climate change increases water scarcity. This article underscores the value of designing interventions rooted in local contexts (targeting women through religion), emphasising their potential to dominate traditional approaches in terms of effectiveness.”
Tim Dobermann (Director of Research, IGC):
“Water has always had a sacred quality attached to it, especially in the places that lack it most. Despite this, water conservation remains a fraught issue. In a world swimming with technological solutions, sometimes the most straightforward is to lean on changing social norms, or what people think. I like this research because it shows how a relatively simple intervention can have meaningful impacts on behaviours like using less water.”
Nalini Gulati (Editorial Adviser, Ideas for India):
“This blog presents useful evidence on the impact of an intervention (messaging by religious leaders), because the intervention in question has potential applications to other contexts and policy issues (e.g. seeking to influence individual/household sanitation practices in India). I have heard this intervention being talked about in policy fora but not explicitly tested.”
Bridging the climate finance gap: Challenges and opportunities for sustainable growth
Author: Tim Dobermann (IGC Director of Research) 19 November 2024

Hina Shaikh, Senior Country Economist, IGC Pakistan:
“This blog spotlights the "cruel arithmetic" of climate finance to brilliantly capture the harsh reality of climate finance and highlight the staggering gap between promises and needs for developing countries. Its sharp focus on the urgent need for scalable solutions and private capital mobilisation makes it a standout piece on the IGC website this year.”
Why conflict hurts women most and the need for coordinated interventions
Author: Hélène Donnat (Policy Economist, IGC State Fragility initiative) 20 March 2024

Nikita Mujumdar (Deputy Managing Editor, Ideas for India):
“This is a very personal choice, because my Master's thesis looked at how human capital development among women is impacted during times of conflict - I appreciated that this article touched upon the need to balance the humanitarian response to conflict with the longer-term development outcomes. Gender issues are also so much more nuanced and complex than they appear at first glance - you would rarely think about the impact of lack of access to menstrual care, for example - and this article outlined many ways of thinking about it, rather than trying to provide specific answers.”
The demand for air quality information and forecast training in urban Pakistan
Authors: Husnain Fateh Ahmad et al. (Assistant Professor, Lahore University of Management Sciences) 24 January 2024

Nalini Gulati (Editorial Adviser, Ideas for India):
“I found this to be very relevant for the policy issue of seasonal smog in North India, and included it in I4I's November Policy Roundup. This is because until the problem is solved, there is a need for focus on coping measures for the affected populations.”
Building new informal bus routes to advance transportation equity: An experiment in Uganda
Author: Tamara Kerzhner (Postdoctoral Researcher, School of Cities, University of Toronto) 12 August 2024

Oliver Hanney and Paola Davila (Managing Editor and Deputy Managing Editor, VoxDev):
“As countries develop and become urban, designing transportation systems within cities that support disadvantaged groups, including informal workers and women, is key. We particularly enjoyed this article as it provides important insights into this area showing that a small investment can have significant benefits when there is open dialogue between different stakeholders.”
How does profit shifting enable tax avoidance in developing countries?
Author: Saugata Mittra (Policy Economist, Tax for Growth, IGC) 7 May 2024

Tim Dobermann (Director of Research, IGC):
“I love markets - and taxes. An effective state complements and steers markets to make inclusive growth possible. Taxation is the bread on which the state lives. Not all states use these resources wisely, and some aim to garner too much; but for most developing countries, they are woefully under-resourced. Profit shifting and tax avoidance are not the only issues these contexts face, but this blog makes a convincing case that we need to tackle these issues head-on.”
How Indigenous people can provide cost-effective climate solutions for biodiversity conservation
Author: Janine Aguilera Mesa (Evaluation and Policy Impact Manager, IGC) 2 December 2024

Oliver Harman (Senior Policy Economist, Cities that Work, IGC):
“There is not enough indigenous knowledge harnessed in economics, this blog takes one small step in doing so (and I think the first time I have read the IGC publish something on Indigenous peoples). A wonderful piece, including enough quantitative information to keep the economist lions satisfied, as well as this beautiful line ‘The Kogui see non-Indigenous, modern societies as "younger siblings" immersed in a linear model of endless expansion through finite resources without fully understanding how to preserve them.”