Covid-19 and the Future of “Made in the World”
Dr Shamel Azmeh, Lecturer in International Development, Global Development Institute
In recent decades, a growing number of books and documentaries have attempted to understand globalisation through following the journey of “things” across the world. The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy by Pietra Rivoli illustrates how these journeys show the complexity of the world economy and the multiple connections that consumers are mostly unaware off in how goods and services are made.
The World Trade Organisation (WTO) promoted the phrase “Made in the World” to illustrate these complexities. Examples of consumer products illustrated that “we are all connected” in the sense that companies integrate production processes linking multiple locations and thousands of workers in different parts of the world. These examples, however, also illustrated that we are very different as this map of production was partially driven by huge variations in wages, labour rights, environmental regulations and spending power between people in different countries. read more…
Are South-South value chains more resilient in the age of Covid-19? Insights from Eswatini’s apparel
Giovanni Pasquali, Research Associate, Global Development Institute, Shane Godfrey, University of Cape Town
The Covid-19 pandemic is having major implications for the resilience of apparel global value chains (GVCs).
State-driven measures to enforce social distancing have led to the downsizing and even closure of supplying firms, especially in developing countries where government support for manufacturers is limited. This dynamic has been worsened by the actions of international brands and retailers which, in a number of cases, have delayed or cancelled orders, and have refused to pay for ongoing production and shipments. read more…
In conversation: Charity Mumbi and Jack Makau on Covid-19 in Kenya’s informal settlements
Charity Mumbi and Jack Makau work for Muungano wa Wanavijiji, a social movement of ‘slum’ residents and urban poor people in Kenya, affiliated to SDI International. In this podcast they describe the last few months of working through the initial outbreak of Covid-19, outlining how communities and their organisations have been responding.
Their agile initial approaches, alongside a longstanding ability to accurately map dense informal settlements has led to new partnerships with the Kenyan Ministry of Health, as part of its coronavirus task force. This work is also being supported by an action research project to track coronavirus responses with GDI’s Professor Diana Mitlin. read more…
Covid-19 and the Hrishipara Diarists – June 2020: still waiting
The story so far
The first blog in this series was written just after a ‘corona lockdown’ was enforced in Bangladesh on 26th March 2020. It discussed the reaction to the shock of the 60 low-income households in central Bangladesh who volunteer as ‘diarists’ in our daily financial diary project. The second blog showed how bad things got during April, the first full month under lockdown. The third blog reviewed the partial recovery that took place in May and wondered if the ending of the lockdown on 31st May was a good idea. This fourth blog notes a partial recovery in economic and financial life in June, set against a surge in Covid-19 cases and deaths in Bangladesh. read more…
Prof David Fielding discusses diversity dividends in Ethiopia
Professor David Fielding joined the Global Development Institute earlier this year. We caught up with him about his research interests.
What did you do before coming to Manchester?
For the last 15 years, I’ve been at the University of Otago in New Zealand as part of the Department of Economics. I had a great time in New Zealand, but I decided it was time for a change. Academically, that means moving into a more interdisciplinary environment, which was the main attraction of coming to Manchester. read more…
GDI Webinar: Using information and technology to improve efficacy of welfare programs: Evidence from India
Watch Upasak Das’ webinar on ‘Using information and technology to improve efficacy of welfare programs: Evidence from India’. read more…
New dataset on property rights
Osman Ouattara, Senior Lecturer, Development Economics, Global Development Institute
Property Rights Revisited
The importance of institutional governance, such as a strong rule of law, a lack of corruption, etc. for growth and development is widely recognised within development economics. Among the different aspects of the quality of governance, the protection of property rights holds a singular place. Its absence prevents people from entering the market economy, thus negatively impacting economic growth. read more…
The impact of old age pensions in India
Dr Vidhya Unnikrishnan, Lecturer in Development Economics, Global Development Institute
Estimates by ILO shows that 92 % of the total employment in India is at the informal sector who are not protected by any formal pension system. The informal sector is characterized by poor working conditions and low wages, that prevents people from making lifetime accumulation of wealth. The lack of an institutionalized social security arrangement for the poor has highlighted the role played by Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension Scheme (IGNOAPS) – a national social assistance program targeted on the elderly members of poor in India. In this context, we evaluated the impact of this social assistance program on various household welfare dimensions. The welfare dimensions include monthly per-capita expenditure, food and non-food per-capita expense, assets, and labour supply. The details of the program are discussed in a previous blog on “Gender and Social Assistance” posted on 24th January 2020. read more…
In conversation: Tanja Bastia and Ronald Skeldon on Migration and Development.
In this special podcast, we are lucky to be joined by the editors of the newly published Routledge Handbook of Migration and Development, Tanja Bastia and Ronald Skeldon.
In this episode, they talk about their long-term collaboration in the fields of migration and development and their wish to build on long-standing research by bringing together established thinkers and new areas of research – an approach which has culminated in this handbook. read more…
Managing organisational tensions between business goals and development goals
How can organisations manage the tensions between business goals and international development goals? These tensions often derail projects, organisations and partnerships but a newly-published paper identifies three strategies used in initiatives that sustain: combining, compromising and decoupling.
Hybrid organisations are on the rise: public-private partnerships; multi-stakeholder partnerships between private, NGO and public sector actors; and business—development hybrids that include venture philanthropists, impact investors, fair and ethical trade, cooperatives, social enterprises, and state-owned enterprises. read more…