insights 80, December 2009

Cash transfers are an increasingly popular social protection mechanism throughout Latin America, where conditional cash transfers are dominant, and sub-Saharan Africa, where unconditional cash transfers are more common. How can this difference in approaches be explained, and what evidence exists on their relative effectiveness?

insights 79, November 2009

Since the late 1990s, security sector reform (SSR) has emerged as a principal activity for promoting peace and stability. The SSR concept has a four-fold heritage

insights 75, November 2008

What do sexuality and policy have to do with each other? Is not sexuality personal, private, and more to do with your body than your politics? Of course on one level it is. However, if we consider our sexual relations in a little more depth, we discover that the terms for them are set by policies and politics, including social norms and gender dynamics, national policies and international relations.

insights 74, August 2008

Many observers argue that the blandness and predictability of established democracies is a sign of national maturity. Indeed, American author and social critic, Gore Vidal, once commented: 'A democracy is a place where numerous elections are held at great cost without issues and with interchangeable candidates'.

insights 73, July 2008

The high world food prices that we are currently experiencing provide a chilling reminder of the vulnerability of large parts of sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia to hunger and undernutrition. Many children in these regions are vulnerable to poor growth, poor development and death.

insights 71, January 2008

International negotiations have failed to achieve consensus on climate change mitigation (reducing greenhouse gas emissions). The longer it takes to reach and implement global agreements on reducing emissions, the more adaptation will be needed for expected climate change, and the greater the number of cities (and other areas) for which protection will be impossible or too expensive.