News archive

7 March 2012. A new article by Bob Baulch on Decomposing the ethnic gap in rural Vietnam, 1993–2004 has been published in Oxford Development Studies. This paper examines and decomposes the gap in per capita expenditures between majority and minority ethnic groups in rural Vietnam between 1993 and 2004. These findings raise important questions concerning the drivers of the disadvantage faced by Vietnam's ethnic minorities.

1 September 2011. A new book edited by Bob Baulch Why Poverty Persists: Poverty Dynamics in Asia and Africa has been published by Edward Elgar. This edited book analyses what traps people in chronic poverty, and what allows them to escape from it, using long-term panel surveys from six Asian and African countries.

9 June 2011. Papers by Bob Baulch and Peter Davis on evaluating the long-term impact of anti-poverty interventions in Bangladesh have been published in The Journal of Development Effectiveness. Information and data from this study are available on IFPRI's Chronic Poverty and Long Term Impact Study in Bangladesh site.

17 May 2011. Peter Davis has published five new CPRC working papers on various aspects of poverty dynamics in rural Bangladesh. The papers examine the intergenerational transmission of poverty, processes of social exclusion or adverse incorporation, exits from poverty, the role of assets and liabilities in poverty dynamics, and how vulnerability is experienced among the poor.

12 January 2011. Peter Davis and Bob Baulch have published a new academic article in The Journal of Development Studies. The paper examines a mixed-methods study of poverty dynamics in Bangladesh and explores how different methods lead to different assessments of socio-economic mobility, in particular movements into and out of poverty.

10 September 2010. Peter Davis and Bob Baulch presented a paper at the recent Chronic Poverty Research Centre (CPRC) international conference held in Manchester from September 8-10. The conference marked ten years of poverty research and was hosted by the Brooks World Poverty Institute at the University of Manchester.

3 September 2010. Peter Davis has published a new IFPRI Project Note on the long-term impact of development interventions in rural Bangladesh. This series of notes summarizes findings of a project entitled “What development interventions work?” undertaken in collaboration with researchers of the Chronic Poverty Research Centre, the International Food Policy Research Institute, and Data Analysis and Technical Assistance Ltd.

29 June 2010. Peter Davis has published a new IFPRI Discussion Paper on the long-term impact of development interventions in rural Bangladesh. The paper focuses on long-term effects in the context of people's life trajectories, using findings from 293 life-history interviews and an accompanying set of focus group discussions conducted in 2007. The aim was to complement the quantitative analysis of the long-term impact of development interventions with qualitative analysis, drawing from participants’ perspectives and exploring the causal mechanisms observed to have contributed to improvement or decline in people’s life circumstances.

25 June 2010. Peter Davis and Bob Baulch have published a new CPRC Working Paper on lessons learned in a mixed-methods study of poverty dynamics in rural Bangladesh. They argue that a sequential but integrated approach in poverty research has a number of advantages over single-method approaches or non-integrated studies. In particular, mixed-methods research strengthens our ability to make more reliable causal inferences, both in individual life trajectories, and in collective trends.

25 May 2010. Bob Baulch has published a new IFPRI Discussion Paper on the impact of the primary education stipend in Bangladesh. In the paper, Bob finds that the impact of the stipend has been remarkably small, and recommends better targetting of poor regions to make the project more effective.

6 May 2010. Graham Brown has been awarded a new $98,000 research grant from the Templeton Foundation and the University of Southern California Center for Religion and Civil Culture for a project on religious identity and citizenship in Malaysia. The study will examine the ways in which religious identity, belief and institutional engagements affect people's perceptions of what constitutes 'good citizenship' in a multiethnic, multireligious country. As the research progresses, qualitative and quantitative datasets derived from the research will be made available via the SDRI website.

16 April 2010. Peter Davis made a presentation on social protection and inclusive citizenship at the Bangladesh Forum in Berlin, organized by NETZ. The proceedings of the forum will feed into EU policy-making processes towards Bangladesh.

30 March 2010. Graham Brown has published two new academic articles in Ethnopolitics and Conflict, Security and Development. The first article examines the politics of ethnic and religious identification in Malaysia, while the second provides a critical review of the literature on the link between ethnicity, inequality and violent conflict.

17 March 2010. Peter Davis has published a new CPRC Policy Brief, coauthored with Kathryn Bach on 'Curbing dowry practices: An anti-poverty imperative'. The policy brief draws upon Peter's research in Bangladesh to show that dowry is a major cause of impoverishment in the country that demands more attention in poverty reduction policies.

14 January 2010. SDRI launches companion blog. A new blog featuring news and discussion of SDRI activities and related social development issues has been launched at http://socialdevelopmentresearch.blogspot.com/.

11 December 2009. Séverine Deneulin taught a two-day course on human development and development ethics in the Masters in International Cooperation and Development at the Bethlehem University, Occupied Palestinian Territories.

26 November 2009. SDRI research fellow Graham Brown is presenting a paper on the education system in Malaysia to the international conference on 'The political functions of education in deeply divided societies', organized by the American University of Beirut.

24 October 2009. SDRI research fellow Bob Baulch presented findings from a major study of the impact of development interventions in Bangladesh. The findings from the research suggest that the Primary Education Stipend programme might benefit from a greater focus on benefiting the extreme poor, with better targeting and a larger stipend. The workshop was held at the Islamic Development Bank Bhavan in Dhaka on October 22 and reported findings from the ESRC/DFID funded project entitled "What development interventions work? The Long-Term Impact and Cost-Effectiveness of Anti-Poverty Interventions in Bangladesh". The findings were reported in a number of national newspapers.

12 October 2009. New project: Jiboner Itihash: Life histories in rural Bangladesh. Peter Davis is preparing a set of life histories for public dissemination and use by other researchers, which will give valuable qualitative insights into the dynamics of chronic poverty. Based on fieldwork conducted in 2007 by a team from DATA Bangladesh, led by Peter Davis, life histories are being rewritten, anonymised and prepared for publication by SDRI, with assistance from Louisa Frears and Rowena Janes.

30 September 2009. SDRI research fellow Séverine Deneulin has published as editor and major contributor a new textbook on the human development approach. Erik Thorbecke, H. E. Babcock Professor of Economics at Cornell University, has praised the book as 'a major contribution towards operationalizing the human development and capabilities approach'. Published by Earthscan, the International Development Research Centre of Canada has now made the book available as a free e-book.

18 September 2009. SDRI research fellows Graham Brown and Séverine Deneulin presented papers to a conference to celebrate the career of the distinguished Oxford-based development economist, Prof. Frances Stewart. Prof. Stewart supervised Séverine's DPhil thesis at Oxford, while Graham Brown worked as a researcher on a project Prof. Stewart led between 2002 and 2007. Their papers will be included in a forthcoming Festschrift.

9 September 2009. SDRI research fellow Séverine Deneulin delivered a keynote speech on 'Poverty, participation, and power' at the Human Development and Capability Association conference at the University of Lima on 9 September. She shared a session with Martha Nussbaum, who spoke on 'The capabilities approach'. More than 400 Peruvian development practitioners, activists and politicians, as well as international academics, participated in the session.
Download Séverine's lecture presentation slides.

4 September 2009. SDRI research fellows Graham Brown and Séverine Deneulin, together with Joseph Devine of the University of Bath, published a BPD Working Paper on Contesting the boundaries of religion in social mobilization. In the paper, they argue that existing approaches to the role of religion in social mobilization have been insufficiently nuanced and have failed to probe the multiple and often contradictory influences that religion can have on mobilization channels.

16 August 2009. Bob Baulch of the Prosperity Initiative, Hanoi, Viet Nam has joined the SDRI team as a research fellow. Bob brings many years experience in development research and practice from Africa and Asia to our work.

2 August 2009. SDRI research fellow Séverine Deneulin has published a WeD Working Paper on Advancing Human Development: Values, Groups, Power, and Conflict. In the paper, she argues that the human development and capability approach needs to pay greater attention to the different groups which construct the value frameworks from which people derive their values and that this requires a more critical analysis of the power dynamics between groups.

25 July 2009. SDRI research fellows Peter Davis and Bob Baulch have published a new CPRC Working Paper. The paper examines a mixed-methods study of poverty dynamics in Bangladesh and explores how different methods lead to different assessments of socio-economic mobility, in particular movements into and out of poverty.