Wellbeing and sustainability in developing countries
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Research
We have pioneered new approaches to understanding sustainability for very poor families in developing countries. This has included a major Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)-funded programme between 2002-2007, entitled Wellbeing in Developing Countries (involving research partners in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Peru and Thailand).
Our previous research was distinctive in its emphasis on the social as well as the material dimensions of livelihoods. The wellbeing programme included a stronger focus on subjective wellbeing and made significant advances in the conceptual and methodological understanding of sustainable livelihoods. Prof Ian Gough and Prof Geof Wood subsequently drew on the wellbeing approach to further develop their comparative framework on welfare policy and provision.
Other related research iniatives include Prof James Copestake and Dr Susan Johnson’s work on micro-finance, funded by the Ford Foundation. This showed how targeting of these services on women not only empowered the women themselves but improved the economic circumstances of their households. Prof Guy Standing, who previously came from the International Labour Office, is at the forefront of research on the insecurities faced by workers around the world, in the wake of reforms of labour law and social protection.
Impact
- Gough and McGregor’s 2007 study Wellbeing in Developing Countries was one of the first volumes to promote the idea of wellbeing in international development policy. Our work has contributed directly to the increasing levels of policy attention given to wellbeing, and has been used by NGOs to develop new ways of monitoring and evaluating their activities.
- Our research into microfinance (Copestake et al, 2005) helped establish the Social Performance Task Force of the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor, an international donor committee hosted by the World Bank and responsible for challenging microfinance institutions to better address their anti-poverty goals.
- Wood and Gough have published extensively on welfare regimes (Gough, Wood et al 2004, Wood and Gough 2006). Their work has influenced the social development thinking of the World Bank and was the main conceptual framework which guided its ‘Frontiers in Social Policy’ conference in Arusha. The framework has also framed the comparative social policy work of the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development.
