Conflict depletes all forms of human and social capital, as well as supporting institutions. The scale of the human damage can overwhelm public action, as there are many competing priorities and resources are often insufficient. What then should be the priorities for 'post-conflict' policy?...

This paper, using a new set of social development indices, explores the measurement of social development across Africa, and how this relates to broader development patterns and measurement. Development practitioners worldwide increasingly recognize the importance of informal institutions, such...

The majority of the world's poor, by income poverty and multi-dimensional poverty, now live in countries officially classified by the World Bank as middle-income countries. Of course nothing happens when a country crosses a (somewhat) arbitrary threshold in per capita income but it does matter...

This paper examines China and Africa co-operation from the angle of structural transformation as a major driver of growth and job creation. Being a bit ahead in the structural transformation process, China can provide ideas, tacit knowledge, opportunities as well as development finances in...

This paper studies the political and economic evolution of trade and international relations of the nations and regions of Asia between themselves and the rest of the world over the past millennium, paying particular attention to: the Pax Mongolica and overland trade during the Middle Ages; the...

This study explores the potential for South Africa to become an engine for intra- regional trade and industrial development by linking other Southern African countries to its global value chains and, in the process, improving its global trade competitiveness. The study identifies 'lead products'...

What makes elites developmental instead of predatory? We argue that Mozambique's elite was developmental at independence 35 years ago. With pressure and encouragement from international forces, it became predatory. It has now partly returned to its developmental roots and is trying to use the...

Vietnam has been among the most successful East Asian economies, especially in weathering the external shocks of recent globalization crises - the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis and the 2008-09 great recession, financial crisis and collapse of global trade. Its success contradicts its...

This paper discusses past and current social policy strategies in the international aid architecture. From the 1990s, aid strategy and policy shifted to put a stronger emphasis on human development. This accelerated with the Millennium Development Goals and will continue under the Sustainable...

Studies of the effects of technology and globalization on employment and inequality commonly assume that occupations are identical around the world in the job tasks they require. To relax this assumption, we develop a regression-based methodology to predict the countryspecific routine task...