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Publications (19)
Local governments in India—known as panchayats—are sometimes criticised for failing to deliver benefits earmarked for vulnerable regions or households to the intended recipients. Mis-targeting of benefits is often attributed to political clientelism, where funds are diverted opportunistically to...
Political clientelism is the strategic, discretionary, and targeted exchange of goods and services between politicians and voters for political support. In many low- and middle-income countries, clientelistic practices such as vote-buying and ‘machine politics’ are ubiquitous.While clientelism is...
Across Kenya, Malawi, and Zambia, political candidates often attempt to buy the votes of the most socio-economically deprived communities. But new research from Prisca Jöst and Ellen Lust argues that social cohesion in these communities is instrumental in determining the levels of support for...
Blog
In democracies around the world, election season is often associated with the power of political machines and their attempts to sway voters in their favour. While some of these efforts are overt, such as candidate debates and television ads, many rely on more pernicious strategies like electoral...
In Africa, there is a distressing correlation between debt and the need to export raw materials. A new paradigm is needed in which African countries focus on creating wealth via adding value to their vast raw material riches. Africa is endowed with abundant and diverse natural resources and natural...
– What can we do about it?
The recently concluded COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh had one important outcome for developing countries: the announcement of a loss and damage fund. This fund will help address climate injustice by helping low-income countries confront climate change disasters. However, while the developed world finally...
The green energy transition is projected to cause an increase in metal demand. Will this demand lead to the opening of deep-seabed mining? As of now, seabed mining has been limited to shallow waters, but could mineral-rich deep seabeds provide an opportunity for the developing world? Deep-seabed...
– Opportunities and salutary lessons
In a series of high-level UN Roundtables, in which I participated in 2021, experts and stakeholders explored the risks and opportunities presented by the global clean energy transition. Discussions included the prospects for lower-income countries arising from the electric vehicle (EV) revolution in...
Electric vehicles (EVs) are confidently expected to decarbonize road transportation, contribute substantially to the net zero agenda, and so help to solve the climate crisis. But as Ben Jones points out in a recent WIDER Working Paper, a rapid growth of global supplies of minerals and rare metals is...
Blog
In this blog, the managing editor of the WIDERAngle shares his personal view on some of the most important —and potentially overlooked— work recently released in the WIDER Working Paper Series. We just passed the halfway point of 2022 and, as of this writing, UNU-WIDER has already released 70...
Just over seven months ago the United Nations convened its 26th Climate Change Conference (COP-26) in Glasgow, with the world nervously emerging from the pandemic. Even before that, energy prices were already ticking up — a trend that accelerated when Russia invaded Ukraine. The global response to...
– How tax havens facilitate corruption in the extractive industries
In many countries, news of an oil discovery or the award of an exploration license is rarely greeted with enthusiasm by the general public. Any hopes of widespread development quickly vanish once people realize only a small elite group stands to benefit. Estimates of global foreign bribery suggest...
At the 76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, world leaders discussed the need to scale-up ambition to address key global challenges, including the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, political extremism, and widening inequality. With less than two weeks to go before the COP26 Climate...
The 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) is seen as the last best chance for countries and companies to set out how they are actually going to deliver the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) target of no more than 1.5 oC. The venting and flaring of natural gas, common...
The long-awaited COP26 in Glasgow is about to start. Billed as the most important COP to date, it is widely seen as a last chance to avoid a global temperature rise beyond 1.5°C. Yet expectations of major breakthroughs weaken by the week. Climate funding to help the developing world remains...
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