Publication

This volume presents a review of global progress made towards achieving Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG 6): Clean Water and Sanitation, part of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The book details how SDG 6 is being approached in a number of geographic regions, with each chapter describing developments in a particular region or country.

Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) is important in advancing sustainable development across the globe. One approach available to countries to promote their sustainable development agendas is the advancement of STI to support the adoption of renewable energy technologies.

This working paper identifies challenges in access to finance for women-owned small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Viet Nam and recommends ways to improve it.

Building on best practices, this paper aims to provide direction for strengthening food safety systems in the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation area to promote countries’ participation in regional and global food trade.

This paper estimates how eliminating gender inequality at work and at home in Mongolia would boost the country’s economic growth and sets out policy recommendations.

The publication shares insights from the forum to support policymakers in rethinking the future of agriculture amid complex and evolving challenges; exploring new research, innovations, and technologies to build nature-positive food systems.

This report presents an analysis of 2018 social protection data from 14 Pacific developing member countries. It identifies measures adopted in response to the coronavirus disease pandemic and outlines future directions for social protection in the Pacific region.

This paper studies whether providing affordable childcare improves women's economic empowerment and child development, using data from a sample of 1,990 women participating in a public works program in Burkina Faso. Women's employment and financial outcomes improved. Additionally, child development scores increased.

This book makes a significant contribution by initiating debate on the state of human rights, freedoms and civil liberties in the context of emergencies such as pandemics in general and Covid-19 in particular. It is without doubt that as the world was preoccupied with combating the Covid-19 pandemic, issues of rights, freedoms and liberties in the context of this struggle increasingly came under close scrutiny. In many African countries, there were concerns about Covid-19 containment measures being enforced brutally by state security operatives such as the army, the police and the intelligence officers.

Since the turn of the millennium, in Ghana and in other African countries, there has been a vociferous debate over the history and present condition of the family. The debate has largely fragmented the Ghanaian constituency into two nearly intransigent camps: those who think the indigenous family system should experience cultural osmosis to accommodate the seismic Western cultural revolutions and the overwhelming religious constituency who advocate the retention of conservative family system.

This paper examines how gender equality has evolved in Sudan during the last decade. The analysis comprises various dimensions including the accumulation of endowment in all its forms (human capital and physical capital), access to economic opportunities, access to services (water, sanitation, and electricity), and voice/representation to make decision at all levels.

This paper characterizes the firm size distribution by exploiting establishment-level censuses covering both formal and informal firms in Sub-Saharan Africa. The paper finds a “missing middle” in the employment-based size distribution of firms in four Sub-Saharan African countries.

This volume describes the unique development of Central Asia as defined by its landlocked geography. Particular attention is paid to the achievements and challenges of the region's post-Soviet economic and political transformation, as well as to its relationship with the participants in the New Great Game - Russia, China and the West.

This book integrates voices of African (Nigerian) artists and art market players into the growing discourse on the emerging art markets in the Global South. It explores the logic of competition and dynamics of power relations in the global markets, focusing on the internationalization of contemporary art forms from peripheral regions.

One of the challenges facing the continent of Africa is the continued marginalization it experiences in terms of its global political, economic and socio-culutral significance. This book, based on a collection of original essays from academics in Africa and across the African diaspora, seeks to address some of these concerns by positing Afri-centric expositions. The central theme of this book is the need for African perspectives and solutions to tackle African challenges, and for the realigning and repositioning of Africa.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries used export and import policy as a tool to expand the availability of scarce critical medical products in the domestic market (scarcity nationalism). This paper assesses the direct and indirect (via trade in intermediates) increases in trade costs of critical medical goods resulting from these uncooperative policies.

In Sahelian West Africa, including in Mauritania, Senegal, and Mali, artists and citizens have used protest art to make their voices heard, in contexts where this can carry risks of conflict with authorities. This paper explores how far art may be used as a tool for dialogue between different groups on environmental concerns in the Western Sahel.

La zone des Niayes doit répondre à la triple injonction de produire pour nourrir, loger une population croissante et contenir l’érosion maritime, alors que ses ressources en eau et ses sols sont directement menacés par le développement des activités économiques et de l’urbanisation.

This brief identifies factors constraining the Afghan economy and three scenarios, considering how changes to these constraints could affect the recovery of the economy.

As the world reaches the midpoint in implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the international education community is still reeling from the impact of the long school closures that characterized the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.