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…
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…
The increasing complexities with today’s interlinked challenges related to resource insecurities, the emergence of novel infectious diseases, socio?economic decline and environmental degradation require systemic approaches that address trade?offs, enhance synergies, minimise resource depletion, and promote waste reduction while operating within the planetary boundaries (Kimani?M…
In August 2015, while we were writing this book, a group of sustainability activists were gathering in the grounds of a borrowed château on the outskirts of Paris. They were intent upon ‘eco-hacking’ the future. What this meant was turning the château into a temporary innovation camp, equipped with the tools for develop-ing a variety of technologies of practical and symbolic…
For the first time in the history of humankind, global goals exist that guide our future. The UN’s 2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide a detailed framework for public, private, and civil society actors globally to bring about sig-nificant and transformative change towards a world that works for 100 percent of humanity and the …
South-South Cooperation (SSC) is both an old concept and a new idea, an old analysis and a new policy directive. Although the notion has existed for decades, it has grown in importance and function, especially since the early 2000s. It has transformed global economic structures, forcing us to redefine traditionally understood words, most notably “region” and “development.” It h…
overty and Wealth in East Africa is a conceptual history of poverty and wealth and of the poor and the wealthy over the past two millennia. It demonstrates the dynamism and diversity of people’s thinking about inequality in the region long before colonial conquest or incorporation into global trade networks. Sub-Saharan Africa’s economic woes and the poverty o…
The road’s potholes were a stark contrast to the destination of the coach-loadof young women driving over them: a brand new building housing one ofBangalore’s many internet-enabled service companies—this one providingaccountancy support services—newly built on the outskirts of the city. Thiscontrast is not something we saw only in India. In the overcrowded streets ofIndonesia’s capita…
The world was not doing enough for sustainable development, even before the pandemic. The existing gap in financing for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals has been estimated at around $2.5 trillion.1 Growth in developing and emerging economies was, however, steadily reducing the number of people in extreme poverty. The recession caused by COVID-19 has reversed that process, al…
Whether this new project, along with its new and ambitious agenda, will in fact be any dif er ent from its forerunners or whether it will also end up using mass house construction and sedentarization to demonstrate devel-opment will become clear only in years to come. Statistics from 2020 and beyond will likely show that there are no longer any poor people—those with income below th…