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Social protection and social cohesion are key for climate action

By Daniele Malerba

The current energy crisis stemming from the war in Ukraine has shown that long-term climate mitigation needs to be coupled with the reduction of poverty and inequality; it is obvious that climate change is a global problem, and one that needs to be addressed in combination with social justice. In a recent article in an EJDR  special issue, we make the case that the relationship and effects of social protection and social cohesion are critical in this sense.  Social cohesion is defined as “the vertical and the horizontal relations among members of society and the state as characterized by a set of attitudes and norms that includes trust, an inclusive identity, and cooperation for the common good”

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Who to blame? The rough start for living income cocoa prices in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana

By Felix Maile, Bernhard Tröster, Cornelia Staritz and Jan Grumiller

Commodity price instability is a major challenge for commodity-dependent countries. This is also true for the major cocoa producer countries Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, which account for two thirds of world’s cocoa production. As we argue in a recent article in the EJDR , the two West African countries can challenge the price-setting power of highly concentrated international buyers through their state-governed price-stabilization measures. However, export and producer price stabilization is limited to one season and entails great risks for the state due to intra-seasonal price volatility. Moreover, inter-seasonal price instability is not addressed and largely born by smallholder farmers, and export and producer prices remain linked to world prices set on futures markets in London and New York.

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Hidden Hands of the City: How the Pandemic Unveiled the Systematic Neglect of Indian Migrant Workers

By Nitya Rao, Ayesha Pattnaik, Arundhita Bhanjdeo and Nivedita Narain

India’s national lockdown announced on March 24th, 2020 came into force 12 hours later. Within a few days, the big story emerging from across Indian cities was of inter-state migrant workers, stranded in cities without work, money or food. With no public transport, many started walking hundreds of kilometres to their homes. Those who stayed, exhausted their savings and were further sucked into debt. The lockdown drew attention to the invisibility of migrant workers in the policy space, and the systematic neglect of their basic rights: at origin, in transit and at destination. Continue reading “Hidden Hands of the City: How the Pandemic Unveiled the Systematic Neglect of Indian Migrant Workers”