A brief primer on wealth for social policy.
Armando Barrientos, Emeritus Professor of Poverty and Social Justice, Global Development Institute
Social policy has traditionally focused on income, its distribution and redistribution. But wealth is increasingly coming into view on issues such as wealth taxes, intergenerational mobility, pensioner capitalism and the super-rich. This brief primer aims to encourage a closer understanding of wealth for the purposes of social policy.
Atkinson distinction between income and wealth is an excellent starting point: “income in a given period is the amount a person could have spent while maintaining the value of his wealth intact” p.39. Wealth is the stock of economic resources or property rights of economic agents. read more…
Hrishipara Daily Financial Diary: The transactions our diarists didn’t make
Since May 2015 the Hrishipara Daily Financial Diary project has been recording all the daily money transactions of a sample of low-income households living in central Bangladesh.
At the end of March 2021, we asked them about the transactions they hadn’t made. The question that Project Manager Kalimullah put, privately, to each of our 60 diarists, was “during the month, were there things you needed to spend money on, but couldn’t, for some reason?” read more…
Welcome to the February 2021 MSc Human Resource Management & Development student cohort
The Global Development Institute offers a range of taught master’s programmes in international development, including four focusing on human resource management (MSc HRM), organisational change (MSc OCD), human resource management and development by distance learning (MSc HRMD-DL) and managing and implementing development projects (MSc MIDP). read more…
Learning from the World of Wedgwood: Human Resource Management webinar
GDI’s Human Resource Management course aims to equip learners with a robust theoretical framework for careers in HRM and at the same time to provide students with an opportunity to gain insights into practice-focused HRM across a wide range of management contexts and sectors. The MSc HRM Enhancement Programme has been developed over five years to offer closer student engagement with a wide range of organisational contexts in the field of HR practice. This year, due to the impact of Covid-19, alternative plans have been made for the enhancement programme to invite guest lecturers from different organisations to engage on matters of HR Practice with HRM students through a series of webinars. read more…
New research forecasts impending environmental disaster associated with the disposal of menstrual products in India
Rising disposable income, intensive product marketing and NGO encouragement has seen more women in India adopting modern pads and tampons instead of traditional menstrual management methods. But this has resulted in adverse effects on environment and waste management systems, currently reaching 100,000 tons of waste per year, according to new research by Mariana Lopez.
India is home to 20% of the world’s menstruating women. While only 58% use menstrual products, the result is over 12 billion pads discarded in India annually. Modern, non-biodegradable products – which are 90% plastic – are now found in water supplies, piled on dumpsites, or left to be removed by waste pickers who are then exposed to diseases. read more…
Gender and migration in the Global South – intersectional reflections on International Women’s Day
Dr Matthew Walsham, Research Associate, Global Development Institute and Dr Tanja Bastia, Reader, Global Development Institute
In this blog, we mark this year’s International Women’s Day by reflecting on the heavy toll that Covid-19 has had on migrants across the world and how the pandemic has highlighted and exacerbated the gendered inequalities that many migrant women face. We draw on our ongoing research to focus particularly on the links between gender, intersectionality and migration in South-South migration and also show how knowledge of these issues can be essential in understanding wider migration dynamics.
In our work on gender and migration, we explore how gender relations shape – and are shaped by – the experiences of migrant women, migrant men and their families at both origin and destination. These relations do not function in isolation and their intersection with other categories of disadvantage and difference – such as race, ethnicity, age, class, disability and sexuality – usually have a profound effect on migrant’s decisions, experiences and outcomes. read more…
MSc Human Resource Management Enhancement Programme Webinar Hermes Airport Project, Cyprus
GDI offers a range of taught master’s programmes focusing on human resource management, organisational change, human resource development and managing and delivering development projects.
The MSc Human Resource Management programme aims to equip learners with a robust theoretical framework for careers in human resource management and at the same time to provide students with an opportunity to gain insights into practice-focused human resource practice across a wide range of management contexts and sectors.
The course has been developed to offer student engagement with a wide range of organisational contexts in the field of HR practice, with a focus on the professional, cultural and social dimensions of their experience. This engagement is achieved through a two-semester Enhancement Programme of organisation-based experiential learning experiences, including residential and day field visits to public and private sector organisations, complemented by visits to the university by experienced, organization-based HR practitioners. read more…
Should we expect a post-Covid-19 social protection epiphany in Latin America?
Armando Barrientos, Emeritus Professor of Poverty and Social Justice, Global Development Institute
Social protection has played a leading role in government responses to Covid-19. Public programmes providing income and in-kind transfers to vulnerable population groups have been strengthened and enhanced to address the effects of the pandemic.
In low and middle income countries, the expansion of social assistance provided governments with a ready-made platform to reach and support low income groups. Social assistance infrastructure – social registries, implementation agencies, and local community links – facilitated fast and effective responses to the crisis. In addition to existing conditional income transfers and social pensions, several governments in Latin America implemented temporary income transfer programmes to support workers in informal employment. In high income countries, governments mobilised support for furloughed workers and the unemployed while social assistance transfers plugged the gaps left by welfare state retrenchment. read more…
Migrant lives: living between aspirational worlds in times of (in)security and immobility
We have just launched a new master’s course on International Development: Migration, Mobility and Displacement. To coincide with this and to give students a greater idea about the course we will be sharing a series of blogs from members of our Migration, Refugees and Asylum research group.
The first blog explores Prof Tanja Müller’s Moving the goalposts of citizenship? German business sector engagement and refugee integration project.
Mobility is a core human endeavour which is often forgotten, but the last decade has in different ways put the limelight on movements but also immobilities. There was the visible movement of refugees from Syria that in particular in 2015 put people’s flight from devastation and their aspiration for a better future into the daily news for a while. Since February 2020, immobility has become a key news item, as Covid-19 has resulted in multiple external and internal travel restrictions, impacting the lives of internal and externals migrants in multiple ways. read more…
Webinar: an introduction to the African Cities Research Consortium
Catch up with our webinar which introduced the African Cities Research Consortium (ACRC) and outlined how the ACRC and its international partners is planning to tackle complex, political and systemic problems in some of Africa’s fastest-growing urban areas.
ACRC has been awarded a contract of £32 million from the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) over the next 6 years. Building on the political settlements analysis established by the Effective States and Inclusive Development research centre, ARCR will adopt a city as systems approach to addressing complex urban problems. Through engaged action research we aim to catalyse progress for disadvantaged communities in a number of focus cities and beyond. read more…