Covid-19 and low-income households in central Bangladesh
How the approach of Covid-19 has affected low-income households in central Bangladesh.
Liaqat (not his real name) is a newspaper vendor and a volunteer ‘diarist’ in the Hrishipara Daily Financial Diaries project. We have been tracking all his money transactions on a daily basis since October 2015. read more…
Dealing with Covid-19 in the towns and cities of the global South
Diana Mitlin, Professor of Global Urbanism, Global Development Institute
The global spread of Covid-19 poses particular risks for the one billion people living in informal urban settlements in the global South. A range of factors make transition of the virus more likely and strategies to tackle it extremely difficult to implement.
Despite these challenges, this is an opportunity to forge new partnerships between agencies that – if they work together – can reach the populations in need. read more…
COVID-19 pandemic brings into sharp relief the risks faced by South African gig workers
The Fairwork Project has launched its second round of yearly ratings for digital platforms in South Africa, which highlight the precarious nature of work in the gig economy
South Africa’s has recently declared a “national state of disaster” because of coronavirus. This will especially impact the most vulnerable groups in the country. That includes those in casual or insecure employment who face two possibilities in the reality of social distancing: loss of income, or ongoing exposure to the virus through the front-line nature of their work. Today the Fairwork Project is releasing a set of scores which evaluate gig economy platforms such as Uber, SweepSouth, and OrderIn against a set of fair work standards. In the current circumstances, their findings about the situation of gig workers in South Africa are more relevant than ever. read more…
Podcast: Addressing inequality in the labour market in South Africa with Imraan Valodia
Professor Imraan Valodia, University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, recently visited the GDI to give a talk entitled ‘A National Minimum Wage – Addressing inequality in the labour market in South Africa?
Hrishipara daily financial diaries: Low-income households in Bangladesh give as well as take loans
The Hrishipara Daily Diaries project has been recording the daily money transactions of 70 low-income households in central Bangladesh, in some cases since May 2015. Bangladesh is famous for its microfinance banks (MFIs) and most of our ‘diarists’ have accounts with MFIs, so it is perhaps no surprise that we have recorded them taking more than 8 million taka’s worth of loans from MFIs, the equivalent of about a quarter of a million dollars at the ‘Purchasing Power Parity’ (PPP) exchange rate. Please see our publications page for other blogs about how diarists take and use loans.
Less well known is the fact that low-income households lend as well as borrow, and in this blog we will look at the phenomenon in more detail.
In conversation: Siobhan McGrath on forced labour and marketising anti-slavery
In this episode, Dr Rory Horner talked to Dr Siobhán McGrath about her research into forced labour and the marketising anti-slavery.
Siobhán McGrath is Assistant Professor in Human Geography at Durham University.
Rory Horner, Senior Lecturer in Globalisation and Political Economy in the Global Development Institute.
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The US-China Trade War: The End of Multilateralism or the Search for a New Bargain?
Shamel Azmeh, Lecturer in International Development, Global Development Institute, Ken Shadlen Professor in International Development, London School of Economics and Political Science
In recent years, the collapse of the multilateral economic regime has become a regular theme. In Davos, at the World Economic Conference in January, this issue emerged in a number of speeches, with the German Chancellor Angela Merkel warning that the end of multilateralism and the fragmentation of the multilateral world will only end in misery. Indeed, for people like us who teach international political economy, material in our courses on the role of international trade rules in providing predictability appear almost outdated with the routine and blatant violations of existing trade rules, by the Trump administration and also other countries in response. The World Trade Organization (WTO), which was established in the 1995 with an aim of providing a rules-based trade regime, has for some time suffered from paralysis as a forum for negotiating new rules (as made evident by the failure to complete the Doha Round, which started in 2001), but nonetheless the existing rules, which cover extensive areas of economic activity, remained in force. That no longer seems to be the case either: the WTO’s rules are being flaunted on a regular basis by virtually all countries, large and small, and the ability to enforce these rules is challenged by the United States refusal to nominate judges to the Appellate Body of the organization’s dispute settlement system. read more…
Fieldwork 2020 in Cape Town: Innovation and community.
Jeannette Zes Giovani, Gloria Oviedo Perez and Danah Alzeiby, Management and Information Systems: Change and Development and ICTs for Development students
Learning is always exciting, and it is even more amazing when we can witness real-life applications of the courses and techniques we have learned at the University. In our case, as postgrad students of the Global Development Institute, it involved a trip to one of the most beautiful destinations in the world, South Africa. Cape Town is a leader in ICTs and the next niche for emerging technology companies, in addition to being a developing country with noticeable societal challenges. Thus, it was the ideal place for us, as students, to compare and see in practice some concepts such as the digital divide, the use of ICT in different industries, and to evaluate Information System success/failure through various frameworks/models that we learned in the classroom, all of which play in real life. read more…
Advancing participatory planning in Zimbabwe: Lessons from Bulawayo
Diana Mitlin, Professor of Global Urbanism, Global Development Institute
Over the last few years, Bulawayo in Zimbabwe has experimented with a wide range of participatory planning techniques. A recent workshop in the city, also featuring experiences from Kenya and South Africa, provided an opportunity to draw some conclusions about what has worked. read more…
In conversation: Jelmer Kamstra and Zoe Abrahamson discuss donor funding, NGOs and governance
In this episode, GDI’s Nicola Banks talks to Jelmer Kamstra and Zoe Abrahamson about the political role of NGOs and how donor funding can support those.
Jelmer Kamstra has been Senior Policy Officer at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands in the Civil Society Division since 2015. He is now Senior Researcher at the Policy and Operations Evaluation Department (IOB) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Zoe Abrahamson is Bond’s senior funding adviser. She coordinates Bond’s funding stream, acting as a conduit between funders and NGOs.
Dr Nicola Banks a Senior Lecturer in Urban Development and Deputy Managing Director of the Global Development Institute.