Southern African Institute for Policy and Research

Effective States and Inclusive Development

The Effective States and Inclusive Development Research Centre (ESID) is based at the Institute for Development Policy and Management (IDPM) and the Brooks World Poverty Institute (BWPI), University of Manchester, and is funded by the UK’sDepartment for International Development.

SAIPAR is involved in one of ESID research projects, which has the following description:Researchers and practitioners agree that an effective state is central to inclusive development. But non-state actors play an equally critical role in delivering goods and services to poor people.Recent research shows how the inter-play between state-society relations, bargaining and informal politics can shape development. ESID research will therefore take a multifaceted approach, looking at the combined influence of elitist and popular forms of politics and the importance of global influences in creating the conditions for a government to achieve its development goals and produce policies that are pro-poor.There will be a particular focus on policies and programmes that have been successful in terms of reducing extreme forms of poverty in specific policy areas, chosen from growth and employment, basic services, social protection, access to justice and natural resource governance. But ESID research will also look more broadly at how ‘developmental states’ emerge and might be promoted.ESID will explore these over-arching concerns within two distinct but related projects:

  • ESID Natural Resources Project One: this will track the historical experience of countries with long-established histories of natural resource extraction in both Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa
The exploitation and governance of natural resources offers a particularly insightful window onto two of ESID’s major concerns in this phase of research, namely the role of political settlements and development ideologies in shaping the prospects for inclusive development, and the significance of how our core domains of accumulation, redistribution and recognition relate to each other. 
  • ESID Natural Resources Project Two: the second, and more prospective study, will examine the implications of the more recent oil finds Ghana and Uganda. Focused on two core ESID countries, this study falls within ESID’s ‘flagship’ project.

SAIPAR takes part in ESID Natural Resources Project One. Other countries selected for this particular project are Bolivia, Colombia and Ghana. A final working paper of 12,000 to 15,000 words will be produced toward the end of 2016.

The outcome of the ESID project is contained in the following working paper.

Maano alazwa amukasumbwa

Translation: "Wisdom may be found through observation of even the simplest things"

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