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Publications (32)
The share of the least developed countries (LDCs) in global foreign investments is less than one percent. But positive developments have taken place—for example, the number of startup companies has increased. This information emerged at a forum held by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland and...
According to a recent OECD Report, borderlands experience a greater intensity of violence, especially violence targeted against the state. While there is an expanding literature on the causes of civil conflict, we do not yet fully know why state peripheries are more prone to violence. Our research...
– Four suggestions to tackle them
This month we had the honour to co-host the first ever LDC Future Forum here in Helsinki. It was our first large-scale live event since the COVID-19 pandemic hit, which made it particularly exciting to be involved in. The conference introduced science-based solutions for attaining the Sustainable...
The next decade is a make-or-break for the world’s most vulnerable countries. To tackle the unprecedented confluence of COVID-19, climate, and economic crises, new solutions are desperately needed. Scientific research is one key for finding long-lasting solutions. Least developed countries (LDCs)...
The situation of Afghanistan has drawn a picture of a poor, conflict-prone, doomed country. But this does not have to be the case. We have examples of several countries able to rise out of poverty, despite conflicts, climate challenges, or large population. International co-operation for eradicating...
Blog
The tragedy for the Afghan people of the Taliban re-taking control of the country in August 2021 is the denouement of a process 20 years in the making. The sudden collapse of the Afghan government and the national security forces over the course of a few days is not a “surprise” to anyone, but was a...
The UNU-WIDER research programme on foreign aid (ReCom) began in 2010, in a period of strong aid scepticism. Dambisa Moyo’s well-known book, Dead Aid (2009), is just one example. The aid sceptics of the twenty-first century maintained that since economists could not find an aggregate relationship...
Blog
26 March 2014 Tony Addison The Nordic countries have a long-standing commitment to development, and their work in peace-building has taken Nordic peacemakers into some of the toughest places in the world. The Nordic countries have been firm supporters of the United Nations system, when other...
Blog
– Findings from Melanesia
9 December 2013 Simon Feeny Vulnerability and resilience are very closely related terms. Vulnerability is usually referred to as the likelihood of falling into poverty in the future. It depends upon the likelihood of experiencing unexpected shocks as well as to the ability to cope with these shocks...
Blog
17 October 2013 David Lewis, Dennis Rodgers, and Michael Woolcock When asked why she wrote novels about poverty rather than gather what we would now call ‘hard’ data, the Victorian novelist George Eliot famously responded that ‘a picture of human life such as a great artist can give, surprises even...
Blog
30 October 2013 Roger Williamson The UNU-WIDER meeting held last week in New York on the topic of fragility and aid argued forcefully that you cannot ‘fix’ failed states as you would a broken window. Drawing on over 80 papers from the governance and fragility theme of the ReCom—Research and...
Blog
30 October 2013 Carl-Gustav Lindén Despite many successful transitions towards peace and multiparty electoral systems there are still 47 fragile states and economies in the world according to the OECD. Around 1.5 billion people are affected by conflict and political instability. Most of them live on...
Blog
24 September 2013 Roger Williamson Another big weekend for UNU-WIDER. The stage was well set on Thursday 19 September for a consideration of inequality and poverty in Africa, at the 17th WIDER Annual Lecture by former Finnish President Ahtisaari on 'Egalitarian Principles–the foundation for stable...
Blog
24 September 2013 Andy Sumner A series of papers since late 2010 has discussed a shift in the location or 'geography' of global poverty. The shift is quite simple: the distribution of global poverty has shifted from countries officially classified by the World Bank as low-income countries towards...
Blog
– The Poorest still Fall Behind
23 April 2013 Marikki Stocchetti 2015 will mark a moment of truth for the international community as the era of the Millennium Development agenda (2000-15) comes to an end. The polarization of world poverty into ‘fragile’ and ‘strong’ states poses a puzzle that requires rethinking at both global and...
Blog
17 April 2013Is the focus of aid funds really the poorest countries in the world? Does the international community follow it's best knowledge on aid modalities? How could education aid be more effective? Has the concentration on enrolment levels in primary education thwarted the quality of education...
Displaying 16 of 32 results