The paper reviews development assistance since the early 20th century, focusing on critical issues at the beginning of the 21st century: limited resources, increased bilateralism, tied aid, conditionality, instruments of development assistance, and the lack of a common global agenda. It belongs...

This paper warns of an emerging post-pandemic fiscal austerity shock—one that is far more premature and severe than the one that followed the global financial crisis—and presents alternative options to ensure that populations do not yet again have to suffer from austerity cuts. It does so...

This paper reviews proposals for a Universal Basic Income (UBI) in light of ILO standards. Some UBI proposals have the potential to advance equity and social justice, while others may result in a net welfare loss. The ILO Social Protection Floors Recommendation (No. 202) includes a number of...

This volume describes mechanisms to build social protection floors, such as a national dialogue in Myanmar, reaching rural dwellers in South Africa, worker facilitation centres in India, single window services in Mongolia, legal systems in Brazil and South Africa, labour inspection in China,...

This paper: (i) examines the latest IMF government spending projections for 187 countries between 2005 and 2020; (ii) reviews 616 IMF country reports in 183 countries to identify the main adjustment measures considered by governments in both high-income and developing countries; (iii) applies the...

This working paper: (i) provides an overview of global, regional and national income inequalities based on the latest distribution data from the World Bank, UNU-WIDER and Eurostat; (ii) discusses the negative implications of rising income inequality for development; (iii) calls for placing...

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused massive disruptions to the global economy and forced policymakers to respond to the newly created challenges. Many policy institutions have therefore had to rethink their established approaches and their usual policy responses.