Inclusive Economies

Our work explores what characterises inclusive economies and how these can be achieved, particularly in a world where new technologies, rural to urban migration, and growing youth populations are disrupting and putting new pressures on people’s lives and livelihoods.

Our research looks at the impacts of business and markets on development and inequality and explores the potential for novel market-based solutions to work for the poorest and most marginalised based on gender, ethnicity and disability.  It explores alternatives that enable workers, consumers and communities to have a real voice.

It continues to revitalise debates on agriculture as a key pathway out of poverty and towards inclusion, particularly for young people. Our work is focused on identifying what opportunities exist in a period of agricultural commercialisation and rural transformation and how far different groups are able to access them.  It also understands how new technologies such as drones or blockchains pose risks, but can also be harnessed to improve the lives of the poorest and most marginalised people.  In a rapidly urbanising world where cities have become focal points for economic growth, jobs and innovation but also for poverty, inequality, vulnerability and conflict, our work explores what this means for both urban and rural people, and the opportunities and challenges they face in living safe and fulfilling lives.

People

Jodie Thorpe

Research Fellow

Philip Mader

Research Fellow

Richard Jolly

Research Associate

Ana Pueyo

Research Fellow

Carlos Fortin

Research Associate

Rachel Sabates-Wheeler

Research Fellow

Keetie Roelen

IDS Honorary Associate

Giel Ton

Research Fellow

Programmes and centres

Projects

Recent work

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Showing 589–600 of 14836 results

Past Event

Backlash against gender justice globally: What does it mean for development?

The IDS-led Countering Backlash programme has organised panel debate where the chair will engage a panel of international experts in a topical discussion on questions for development arising from a swell of anti-gender backlash across the world: ‘What is it?’, ‘How should development...

13 June 2023

Brief

Adaptation of the Community-led Total Sanitation (CLTS) Protocol During the COVID-19 Response

SLH Learning Brief;15

Before COVID-19, Mozambique’s Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) protocol, introduced in 2008 and referenced in the Strategy of Rural Sanitation 2021-2030, broadly aligned with the original approach proposed by Kar and Chambers in the CLTS Handbook (2008). It included participatory...

12 June 2023

Past Event

Communicating climate complexity: Arts and pedagogy

Climate change is complicated. So are the things we're doing about it. How might the arts help us to address that complexity? As educators and researchers in a university, how do we embed sustainability themes across our activities? As people on a planet, how do we talk and think about...

12 June 2023

Opinion

The global infrastructure of pastoralist systems

If you understand stabilization and expansion of herder outputs and outcomes — in particular household livelihoods — are central to pastoralism, then there are varieties of pastoralism. This is largely because efforts to achieve stable and expanding livelihoods vary with the critical...

9 June 2023

Past Event

Michael Lipton Lecture

The Department of Economics at the University of Sussex Business School and the Institute for Development Studies (IDS) are hosting a public lecture in honour of Professor Michael Lipton. This event celebrates the outstanding contributions that Professor Michael Lipton made to the Department of...

9 June 2023

Opinion

Arts-for-change: environmental deliberation in Africa

Collaborative art-making may promote relationships between groups with little experience of engaging together directly in east and west Africa, in contexts where policy dialogue is already emotive and value-based. Arts based methods in democratic deliberation and 'arts-for-change' In...

7 June 2023

Past Event

After the UN Water conference: Examining the global dissonance

How did the latest UN Water Conference influence the progress of global water governance? Join us in a hybrid discussion of what matters! Global water and sanitation governance still have a long way to go before attaining the ambition of SDG 6 to "ensure access to water and sanitation for...

7 June 2023

News

ICAI report on UK aid for trade

The Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI) has released its review on UK aid for trade. It found that many objectives are being met such as delivering significant reductions in the time to trade across borders and contributing to increases in trade. However, there is a lack of sufficient...

6 June 2023

News

Listening to children must be key to UK’s strategy on child labour

A new report from a cross-party group of MPs calls for the UK Government to strengthen its modern slavery strategy and more support for children moved out of harmful child labour as a result of regulation, such as education or social protection. The report ‘Child Labour: strengthening the...

6 June 2023

Working Paper

When Complex is as Simple as it Gets: Guide for Recasting Policy and Management in the Anthropocene

IDS Working Paper 589

Many readers recognise and understand that complex is about as simple as it gets for major policy and management. This guide is for those unwilling in the Anthropocene to shrink back into the older platitudes about ‘keep it simple’ and ‘not to worry, we’ll scale up the analysis later on’.

6 June 2023

Why learn with us.

In an extraordinary time of challenge and change, we use more than 50 years of expertise to transform development approaches that create more equitable and sustainable futures. The work you do with us will help make progressive change towards universal development; to build and connect solidarities for collective action, locally and globally. The University of Sussex has been ranked 1st in the world for Development Studies for the past five years (QS World University Rankings by Subject).