Research Output – Debating Development Research

06/06/2024

Unravelling the Geographies of the Green Transition: Understanding the Finance-Extraction-Transitions Nexus

By Tobias Franz and Angus McNelly

The transition from fossil fuels to green energy in the 21st century – driven by the urgent need to address anthropogenic climate change – represents a monumental shift in not just global energy systems but generally within global capitalism. This transition mirrors historical transformations in energy systems, such as the emergence of fossil capital in northern England or the shift from coal to oil in the 20th century, which have had profound impacts on the world economy. The ongoing green transition presents similar unique challenges and opportunities, requiring a fundamental reconfiguration of energy production and consumption patterns to avoid catastrophic climate collapse.

07/05/2024

Uneven Decommodification Geographies and Global Structural Inequalities

By Geoff Goodwin

When Covid-19 ground the world economy to a halt in early 2020, governments from across the political spectrum took measures to shield sectors of society from the full impact of the socioeconomic crisis. Yet the scale and form of these responses varied enormously between countries and regions. What explains this unevenness? What does it tell us about capitalism today? I take up these questions in a new article in EPA: Economy and Space.

09/04/202429/04/2024

Medical Drones in Africa: A Gamechanger for the Continent’s ‘Ailing’ Health Sector?

By Edwin Ambani Ameso and Gift Mwonzora

While medical drones can be lauded as game-changing health technologies that help save lives, and usher efficiency and cost-effectiveness in the often contextualized as fragile African health systems, Edwin Ambani Ameso and Gift Mwonzora argue that this is not the complete picture.

30/01/2024

Rethinking Economics for an Uncertain World: Challenges for Development

By Ian Scoones

Uncertainties are everywhere, whether emerging through climate change, financial volatility, conflict or war. All too often we don’t know what the future will hold. This presents a big challenge for conventional styles of economic development where predictive models, blueprint plans and standardised policies hold sway. What would an economics for development look like if uncertainties – where we don’t know the likelihood of future outcomes – are taken seriously? This is the focus of a new paper in World Development, where we argue for a major recasting of economic thinking and practice, reclaiming older approaches that put uncertainty centre-stage.

19/10/2023

Will growth be enough to end poverty? New Projections of the UN Sustainable Development Goals

By Arief Anshory Yusuf, Zuzy Anna, Ahmad Komarulzaman and Andy Sumner

Two days ago was the UN International Day for the Eradication of Poverty (you already knew that, right?). In new analysis for UNU-WIDER, we assess progress towards the global poverty-related SDGs, specifically monetary poverty, undernutrition, child and maternal mortality, and access to clean water and basic sanitation. Our analysis then looks forward, making projections on the state of global progress over the coming years, up to the 2030 deadline for meeting the SDGs.