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Gender Equality and Inclusion in MENA: Bridging Gender Gaps in Energy and MSMEs
No full textThe Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region continues to grapple with entrenched gender disparities, particularly in labor market participation, economic empowerment, and access to energy. Women and youth in MENA face systemic barriers that limit their ability to engage in entrepreneurship, participate in the energy transition, and fully integrate into the micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) sector. Despite progress in education, where female enrollment in tertiary education often surpasses that of men, women’s participation in the workforce remains among the lowest globally. Female business participation in MENA stands at only 19%, significantly below the global average of 34%, with stark variations across the region. Countries such as Tunisia and Bahrain report relatively higher levels of female entrepreneurship, whereas others, such as Yemen and Jordan, exhibit alarmingly low female business ownership rates. While some MENA nations have made policy advancements to promote gender equality, others remain constrained by legal and socio-cultural barriers that hinder women’s economic participation.Energy access and the clean energy transition are critical components of sustainable economic development in MENA, yet they remain highly gendered. Women disproportionately bear the burden of energy poverty, primarily due to their roles in domestic labor, while also being underrepresented in the formal energy sector. Research suggests that renewable energy (RE) could provide new opportunities for women’s employment and entrepreneurship, yet the gender gap in STEM education, cultural biases, and limited access to finance prevent women from fully participating in this transition. MSMEs, which account for a substantial portion of economic activity in MENA, play a crucial role in fostering economic growth, job creation, and innovation. However, MSMEs owned by women and youth face unique challenges, including financial exclusion, legal restrictions, and a lack of targeted support mechanisms. Given the interconnections between gender, MSMEs, and energy, this study aims to provide a cross-thematic analysis of gender equality and inclusion in six MENA countries—Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Sudan, and Tunisia—highlighting both the barriers and opportunities for integrating women and youth into the clean energy and MSME sectors.</p
The Challenges of Decolonising Sustainability and the Environment in Development Studies (DS)
No full textThis think-piece makes a case for addressing the colonial roots of sustainability. It examines how enduring colonial mechanisms and biases have led to certain forms of value and valuing, problematic views of ‘pristine nature’ and processes of extractivism. These in turn have led to dispossession and violence, especially for Indigenous and marginalised communities in the majority world. It explores how studies on the environment and sustainability have sought to implicitly or explicitly challenge these colonial biases and their impacts. Researchers working on the environment, gender and sustainability have brought together Development Studies (DS) with science technology studies (STS), (feminist) political ecology, anthropology and feminist epistemology. This has resulted in strong engagements with the politics of knowledge, the colonial roots of environmental problems and the need to lift the perspectives and voices of historically marginalised groups to promote alternative ways of doing and understanding development and nature/society relations. Researchers working in other fields of DS could do more to draw on these diverse perspectives, especially since epistemic and material inequalities and power structures are interlinked and mutually reinforcing. I also focus on the dangers of decolonisation becoming a buzzword without much change in actual practices in ways of working and collaborating.</p
Connecting, Contesting, and Consolidating
No full textThis Briefing is based on a rapid scoping review of anti-rollback actors and activities post-2015, in 14 countries: Argentina, Brazil, Egypt, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, South Africa, and Türkiye. Our review included organisations, movements, groups, and projects active since 2015 that focus on sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI), sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), gender-based violence, and women’s public participation.The Briefing drew on the work of our research team: Samreen Mushtaq, Chandni Ganesh, Maria del Pilar Grados Bueno, Manal Hassan, Harshita Kumari and Siju Yusuf.</p
Taxing the Wealthy in Lower-Income Countries: Why It’s Important, and How to Do It
No full textThe world is experiencing multiple crises, including increasing global tension, skyrocketing debt levels, and climate change. Lower-income countries (LICs) are bearing the brunt of these crises. Their finances, both from domestic sources and international aid, are not growing sufficiently to meet their needs. Their expenditure requirements are higher than ever - improving services, expanding social protection, and promoting investment all add to the bill. This policy brief argues that one of the tools that LIC governments have at their disposal is particularly under-utilised – taxing the wealthy more effectively.The latest version of the policy brief includes a corrected version of figure 2.</p
Towards Inclusive Social Assistance for Marginalised People in East and Northeast Uganda
No full textThe negative impacts of crises on marginalised people’s lives are exacerbated by intersecting inequalities. However, there is limited knowledge about the layered effects of marginalisation and protracted crises; what this means for how people cope and access social assistance in particular crisis contexts; and how to address the connected material, emotional, relational and socio-political issues. This research tackles this gap by generating understandings about the social assistance experiences of marginalised people in east and northeast Uganda, and insight into how the relations and processes needed for safer, more dignified, inclusive, effective, and accountable provision might be fostered through inclusive participatory processes. During phase 1, we used qualitative, narrative, creative, and participatory methodologies with peer researchers, people with disabilities, older people, widows, single mothers, and orphans in the remote, insecure and poorly serviced Teso and Karamoja sub-regions. Phase 2 brought group participants and the research team together to collectively analyse the data, synthesise key insights, and develop recommendations and solutions. Phase 3 involved participants in dialogue with social assistance stakeholders to influence improvements in provision. We found that protracted crises in Uganda greatly aggravate the issues that marginalised people face when navigating access to social assistance. In particular, the most marginalised people in east and northeast Uganda, who face intersecting inequalities, are already harmed by exclusion and adverse inclusion; but multiple crises significantly intensify their support needs, often tipping them into unliveable life circumstances, destitution and desperation. Current social assistance provision is fundamentally inadequate, providing at most temporary and superficial relief, and it considerably exacerbates people’s marginalisation, with marked material, physical and emotional impacts. It is imperative that policymakers and social assistance providers think much more deeply, thoroughly and critically about how social assistance can be implemented in safer, more inclusive, effective and dignified ways, to better support the nuanced and exacerbated needs of marginalised people in protracted crises.</p
Designing Social Assistance Programmes for Displaced People
No full textSocial assistance programmes for displaced people are likely to be more effective if they take the circumstances and preferences of displaced people into account, yet very few do. Most research tends to focus on those who deliver assistance rather than those who receive it. This Policy Briefing provides options for filling the gaps in consultations with displaced people. It draws on research with displaced people in camp and urban locations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Lebanon and Pakistan to identify key design principles that need to be considered. It also demonstrates the value of using displaced personas as a tool for considering the impact of particular policy choices.</p
Key Considerations: Using Social and Behavioural Science to Inform the Use of Vaccines During Health Emergencies
No full textThis brief synthesises social and behavioural science (SBS) research on the use of vaccines during health emergencies in sub-Saharan Africa, including vaccines undergoing clinical trials (‘experimental vaccines’). There are outbreaks of mpox, Marburg virus disease and Ebola (Sudan virus disease) in the region, and multiple clinical trials of vaccines for these diseases are in progress. Findings from SBS research can contribute to strategies to build confidence in vaccines and, importantly, the design of clinical trials and vaccine roll-out. To improve effective vaccine roll-out, it is critical to ensure that programmes consider social dynamics and community perspectives from the outset, rather than just at the end point of delivery.This brief is based on a rapid review of published literature and draws on evidence from routine vaccination, vaccination in health emergencies and vaccine clinical trials during health emergencies. It highlights key issues and good practices that should be carried into the design and delivery of vaccine clinical trials during a public health emergency.</p
The Handbook of Iraqi People’s Heritage
No full textIraq is a land of rich and diverse cultural heritage, shaped by thousands of years of history. As a crossroads of civilisations, the country bears the marks of many cultures, beliefs, and religions, each leaving a distinct imprint on its people and landscape. However, there are many groups and communities marginalised on religious, ethnic, linguistic, and cultural grounds in Iraq. It is the heritage of such marginalised groups that is most at risk of disappearance.The Handbook of Iraqi People’s Heritage is the result of a collaboration between the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), UK, and the University of Duhok in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. It is the fulfilment of a vision of heritage gathering and preservation that would not have been possible without the heroic efforts of the heritage gatherers: the young women and men who sought out the histories, traditions, practices, and places that constitute the heritage of their own respective communities. Personal narratives and excerpts from individuals interviewed provide rich content for the chapters that feature nine communities: the Armenians; the Assyrians; the Chaldeans; the Kakeyîs; the Sabean-Mandaeans; the Shabak; the Syriac Orthodox; the Turkmen of Tal Afar; and the Yazidis.The Handbook looks at the living heritage in the day-to-day life and activities of both individuals and communities. Traditions and practices reveal the deep cultural significance in the daily activities surrounding food and drink, music, clothing, and language and education. Similarly, there are the traditions focused around festivals, religious holidays, rituals, feasts, celebrations, and remembrance. Heritage is what is so meaningful in our lives that we choose to pass it on to the generations to come. Reaching beyond buildings and belongings, there is also the intangible heritage reflected in oral histories, traditions and practices, and personal and collective memories. This Handbook reflects the remarkable resilience and enduring strength of all the communities featured. Their continued preservation of collective memories, traditions, and history, despite the hardships, is testament to the communities themselves.To read your eBook EPUB file, you must have an eBook reader installed. See the EPUB Download Guidelines for information on accessing EPUB files from IDS OpenDocs on your device. You can also download IDS eBooks for your device directly from Amazon, Google, Kobo, or the British Library from which they will be delivered to you in the usual way from these sites.This eBook PDF (version 2) was updated in February 2025 for compliance with the European Accessibility Act, replacing the former PDF version with one that meets the PDF/UA (Universal Accessibility) standard.The EPUB file conforms to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 AA standard.</p
The Politics of Social Assistance in Lebanon
No full textThis brief examines the politics of social protection amid ongoing financial crisis in Lebanon. It finds that Lebanon’s political settlement remains characterised by sectarian-clientelism and fractured sub-state loyalties, and that a fractured formal social protection system exists alongside longstanding traditions of political party-led social assistance. It argues that Lebanon’s new National Social Protection Strategy provides a rare opportunity to foster a new social contract that is inclusive and rights-based.</p
Gender Relations and Environmental Change [Editorial]
No full textIn recent years, linkages between gender and the environment have become an important focus both of research and of development policy and practice. They figured strongly at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development in Rio, 1992, and seem set to do so in the forthcoming Conference on Women, Beijing, 1995. At IDS, gender–environment relations have been a major theme of recent work, with the Environment Group linking into the Institute's long tradition of work on gender and development. We have been interested in gender relations as integral to the social and economic organization which mediates people's relationships with particular environments. And we have been concerned with gender as a key dimension of social difference affecting people's experiences, concerns and capabilities in natural resource management. Researching the two-way relationships between gender relations and environmental change in a variety of settings, we have also attempted to integrate gender issues into analysis of environment and sustainable development policies in ways which will lead to progressive change for women.These are the concerns underlying the present IDS Bulletin, which brings together findings from some of the latest IDS-related research on gender–environment relations with the work of other leading scholars and practitioners in the field.</p