WIDERAngle

Expert commentary from our network

About

The WIDERAngle publishes expert commentary and analysis of the latest research in global development. The WIDERAngle supports UNU-WIDER’s missions to undertake research and policy analysis on the most pressing concerns affecting humanity and provides a forum for knowledge sharing, discussion, and debate.

 

To see past newsletters, visit our WIDERAngle archive.

 

Write for the WIDERAngle

We accept submissions that represent sincere efforts to advance knowledge on topics related to the promotion of sustainable and equitable development for all. Although many of our writers are established in their fields, we particularly encourage submissions from early-career researchers, policy professionals, and writers who represent Global South countries and perspectives.

 

For guidelines on WIDERAngle submissions, please refer to our Guidelines for submissions.

 

Send submission queries to editorialteam@wider.unu.edu.

 

EDITORIAL TEAM

Executive Editor: Annett Victorero

Managing Editor: Timothy Shipp

Assistant Editor: Tristan Reid

 

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Securing a future for the next generations – navigating today’s global challenges

by Frederik Matthys
In an era frequently described as ‘unprecedented’, the global landscape often seems daunting. Countries classified as democracies are increasingly outnumbered by those classified as autocracies, interstate conflicts have escalated, and the multifaceted impacts of climate change—from health crises to forced displacement—continue to intensify. Meanwhile, gender inequality persists, progress in poverty and inequality reduction has stalled, or even reversed in some contexts, and multilateral co...

Quantifying the economic impact of conflict traps

by Joan Margalef
As we look towards securing a brighter future for coming generations, we must address the complex challenges that threaten sustainable development and global stability. Among these challenges, conflict stands out as a particularly destructive one. In our latest research, we find that a country that falls into conflict is expected to lose 20% of its GDP per capita after 30 years, compared to if it had always been at peace. Even for small countries, this represents a substantial economic loss...

What are foresight methods and how can they secure our common futures?

by Aicha Robei
Future tools and foresight thinking are crucial instruments to improve decision-making for a common future. As a Youth Foresight Fellow with UNICEF, I firmly believe that utilizing foresight, a sophisticated approach for anticipation and strategic planning, is essential in tackling and lessening the impacts of climate change, conflict, and inequality.Foresight allows us to think about the speculated future based on models and data to solve problems and chart a path to a prosperous and nurturing...

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    Blog
    Are Sovereign Wealth Funds fit for purpose in Africa?

    Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) have become a symbol of national success and a means for global, commercial and geopolitical influence. But how well do...

    Research Brief
    Search image, calculator, pen, Ugandan currency, URA form. Image: Kalungi Kabuye / UNU-WIDER
    What is the impact of corporate tax incentives in Uganda?
    Blog
    Taking localisation beyond labels and lip service

    Donors increasingly speak of locally led aid response, but often do not walk the walk. Case in point is the United States Agency for International...

    Blog
    Development aid cuts will hit fragile countries hard, could fuel violent conflict

    Fragile and least developed countries have had their development assistance cut drastically, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation...

    Blog
    Local governance in Ghana is more complicated than central versus regional

    Measuring the effectiveness of local government in Ghana is hampered by incomplete records, but despite that there are still visible patterns, write...

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

    Today, October 17th is the UN International Day for the Eradication of Poverty (you already knew that, right?). In new analysis for UNU-WIDER, we...

    Blog
    Oslo conference turns the spotlight on sustainable development financing
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    With the deadline for achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals just seven years away, there is an increasing sense of urgency over the...

    Blog
    Will a revenue boom support development in resource-rich economies?

    The post-COVID-19 economic recovery and Russia’s war with Ukraine have caused some natural resource prices to reach new highs. Although forecasting...

    Blog
    Why the Aid Effectiveness Principles are important for development

    Demonstrating empirically the Aid Effectiveness Principles' global impact on development is a challenge. But according to Rachel M. Gisselquist...

    Blog
    Democracies are no longer immune to revolution – evidence from Lebanon and Iraq

    New research for UNU-WIDER explores the differences between revolutionary mass mobilizations in democracies versus dictatorships. Evidence from...

    Blog
    What determines tax revenues mobilization?
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    Tax revenues and political institutions placing constraints on the executive power may reinforce each other over time and this may also bring a shift...

    Blog
    Clientelism and targeting of welfare benefits: Can a centralized formula-based system do better?

    Local governments in India—known as panchayats—are sometimes criticised for failing to deliver benefits earmarked for vulnerable regions or households...

    Blog
    91% of sub-Saharan African workers don’t save for old age: Why that’s a problem and how to fix it
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    Less than 10% of the workers in sub-Saharan Africa save for old age, the lowest rate for any region in the world. That implies most of the...

    Blog
    Does political clientelism lead to higher corruption and a weaker rule of law?

    Political clientelism is the strategic, discretionary, and targeted exchange of goods and services between politicians and voters for political...

    Blog
    Four global problems that will be aggravated by the UK’s recent cuts to international aid

    UK economic forecasts have improved markedly since the September 2022 mini-budget. The economic recession may now be more shallow and public borrowing...

    Blog
    From Monterrey to Addis Ababa, and what has happened since?
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    The importance of domestic revenue mobilization and taxation for sustainable development is widely acknowledged in global development discussions, but...

    Research Brief
    Did withholding value-added tax improve revenue collection in Zambia?
    Blog
    What is next for development effectiveness in a post-aid world?
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    Improving the effectiveness of global development spending may seem like a fool's errand given the state of the world today. Yet this is precisely the...

    Policy Brief
    Building evidence around the effectiveness principles

    This policy brief draws on the studies presented at the International Research Conference on the Effectiveness of Development Cooperation on 17–18 November 2022, in Brussels, Belgium and jointly organized by UNU-WIDER and the European Commission (DG...

    Blog
    Empirical research is crucial for better tax enforcement in the developing world
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    I had the privilege to participate in the UNU-WIDER Winter School as one of the lecturers. In this blog, I explain my main takeaways for students and...

    Blog
    Electoral politics and Mexico’s COVID-19 vaccine roll-out

    Government responsiveness is an integral feature of representative democracy. Its importance could be amplified in times of crisis, especially if...

    Blog
    Putting it all together: Highlights from The puzzle of peace
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    ‘Understanding how to sustain peace means understanding conflict itself. Yet conflict and peacebuilding are often addressed separately’ – Patricia...

    Blog
    Solving the puzzle of peace: Overcoming the curse of Finland
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    At The puzzle of peace conference in Helsinki, Adnan Khan, Chief Economist at the UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, lamented what he...

    Blog
    COVID-19 in India: cases, deaths, and vaccinations

    The Omicron variant resulted in a third major wave of Covid-19 in India, with the number of cases exceeding those in the second wave, albeit causing...

    Blog
    Virtuous circles and downward spirals: The power of ideas & the limits of technocracy
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    What will it take to shake loose the distemper of our times, and initiate a virtuous spiral of renewal? In a recent UNU-WIDER webinar, Alan Hirsch and...

    Blog
    Staffan Lindberg’s keynote address is a wake-up call
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    In introducing Staffan Lindberg’s keynote at the WIDER Development Conference, UNU-WIDER Senior Research Fellow and political scientist Rachel...

    Blog
    Why countries best placed to handle the pandemic appear to have fared the worst

    During the first year of the pandemic, it was wealthier countries, with their comparatively stronger health systems, civil services, legal systems and...

    Blog
    Foreign aid can help stem the decline of democracy, if used in the right way

    Democracy is having a hard time. In India, once the world’s largest democracy, the pandemic has hastened the country’s slide toward authoritarianism...

    Blog
    What does COVID-19 mean for Africa?: Challenges, but also opportunities

    The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an exceptional social and economic crisis all over the world, with Africa among the hardest-hit regions. What are the...

    Research Brief
    The role of tax and benefit policies during the COVID-19 pandemic in Ecuador
    Blog
    Why should I care about economic growth?
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    Director of UNU-WIDER, Professor Kunal Sen is a world leading expert in development economics and led on ESID’s research into economic growth. In this...

    Blog
    Slow death or new direction for the UN?
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    For most of its 75-year existence, the United Nations has struggled to strike a balance between its lofty founding aspirations and realities on the...

    Research Brief
    Wage inequality in post-apartheid South Africa

    Much work has been done on inequality in South Africa, but to date the literature that assesses the dynamic response of income or wealth distribution to economic policy actions is almost non-existent. This information gap is caused by data...

    Research Brief
    Are credits or deductions better in public health spending?

    The impact of medical deductions and medical credits on income inequality is a subject of discussion in South Africa, as well as in many other countries, raising critical questions about the fairness of the medical tax system and the impact on...

    Blog
    35 years of knowledge for change: Changing IMF orthodoxy (1985-95)
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    UNU-WIDER was among the first to challenge IMF orthodoxy on macroeconomic stabilization. The 1985-87 project ‘Stabilization and adjustment policies...

    Blog
    Do we have the right balance?: Aggregate population health and COVID-19
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    The world has been shaken by unprecedented efforts in the name of public health. But, efforts to arrest COVID-19 were not initially formulated with a...

    Research Brief
    Estimating tax gaps in the non-financial sector

    Many governments, particularly those in developing countries, have set an objective to improve tax revenue mobilization to offer more and better public services to their citizens. To develop effective revenue-raising strategies it is necessary to...

    Blog
    Beyond lockdown: rebuilding the social contract

    Continued lockdown measures are straining the social contract between citizens and governments. As this column explains, in contexts where there are...

    Blog
    The debate around intellectual property rights and the COVID-19 vaccine
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    The most effective way to fight COVID-19 is by vaccinating against infection. But once the vaccine is developed, how can it be distributed across the...

    Research Brief
    Pushing for policy innovation
    Blog
    Global poverty: coronavirus could drive it up for the first time since the 1990s

    As COVID-19 slows in developed countries, the virus’s spread is speeding up in the developing world. Three-quarters of new cases detected each day are...

    Blog
    The end of poverty postponed?: Over a billion people living in poverty and a $500 million per day loss of income for the poorest people in the world could soon be reality

    The COVID-19 pandemic continues to dominate headlines as the death toll rises and economies falter. However, far too little attention is being given...

    Research Brief
    Understanding elite commitment to social protection in Rwanda
    Blog
    Being the change you want to see
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    While growing up, I was troubled by the scale of the socioeconomic gap between the haves and the have-nots in the community around me. I saw cases...

    Blog
    An unprecedented threat requires unprecedented leadership: What is needed from global powers
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    COVID-19 is the greatest global threat the world has faced since the Second World War. It is not the deadliest or most infectious disease recorded...

    Blog
    How Africa can fight the pandemic
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    The response to Africa’s COVID-19 plight must be swift and at scale rather than too little, too late. In a world short of progressive global...

    Blog
    When COVID-19 comes to Africa
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    There is no telling how long it will take to bring the COVID-19 coronavirus under control, or how many people will be affected. But African...

    Policy Brief
    The politics of social protection in Eastern and Southern Africa

    Since the mid-1990s, there has been in Africa something of a ‘quiet revolution’ in poverty reduction strategies with the proliferation of social assistance programmes that entail cash transfers to the poor. The past two decades have also been...

    Displaying 48 of 294 results