Why are there such significant and persistent differences in living standardsacross countries? This is one of the most important and challenging areas ofdevelopment thinking and policy. Much of the focus in the academic andpolicy literature on‘growth’has been on steady-state or long-run average rateof growth of output per capita or, equivalently, comparinglevelsof income.But the focus onone…
Fragile states expose their societies to the risk of meltdown or collapse, endangering the lives of their citizens and leaving them unable to sustain ordinary life. When this happens, famine, violent disorder and economic distress can displace many millions of people, with consequent impacts on surrounding regions. State fragility can also threate…
Traditional approaches to teaching, researching, and advancing human rights need a refresh. The Sustainable Development Goals, the Leave No One Behind ethos, and the SDG16 agenda for peaceful, just, and inclusive communities offer a refreshed way to research and teach human rights and social justice in the twenty first century. Exploring how to ground an emerging paradigm shift and field build …
Thailand joined the ranks of the upper-middle-income countries in 2011, with sustained high growth and rapid poverty reduction. Gross domestic product (GDP) grew an average of 9.5% per year between 1987 and 1996 on the back of political stability, a business-friendly regulatory environment, a large domestic market, open access to foreign investment, and greater participation in regional value c…
A series of unforeseen events caused an abrupt halt to the Philippines’ strong growth momentum in early 2020. As a result, the Philippine economy contracted by 0.2 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2020, a sharp reversal from the 5.7 percent growth over the same period a year ago. The growth contraction – the first in over two decades – was driven by a series of unexpected even…
This book examines the ways in which people wrote about and engaged with infertility in the German Middle Ages. Striking differences emerge across the vernacular stories, legends, and romances concerned. For some, childlessness is a huge problem, for others, a high ideal. Regina Toepfer considers the reasons for these differences, and how ideas changed over the period, revealing different narra…
This thematic report documents concerns regarding Israel's use of explosive weapons with wide area effects in densely populated areas during the escalation in hostilities in Gaza since 7 October 2023, and how this complies with international humanitarian law (IHL), particularly in relation to the principles of distinction, proportionality and precautions in attack. It details six individual inc…
According to the 2023 Democracy Index, 74 of the 167 countries and territories covered by the model are democracies of some type. The number of “full democracies” (those scoring more than 8.00 out of 10) remained at 24 in 2023, the same as the previous year. The number of “flawed democracies” increased from 48 in 2022 to 50 in 2023. Of the remaining 95 countries in our index, 34 are cla…
The way in which these six problems interact has far-reaching consequences for the day-to-day conduct of public affairs, the rights and freedoms of citizens and the legitimacy of the democratic system. The assessment points to the economic vulnerability of the lower middle class, due to the fragmentation of the labor market (formalityinformality, low-high productivity) and the segmentation of …
Spurred by public investment, its growth rate averaged more than 9 percent between 2000 and 2017. Gross domestic product per capita (measured in purchasing power parity or PPP has risen nine-fold since 1991, but remains low compared to other parts of the world (for example, emerging and developing Asian countries (figure 1)). Initially, per capita GDP growth barely exceeded population growth b…