Cashless economics: the new wave of mobile money

2017 marks the 10 year anniversary of M-PESA, the digital wallet that transformed financial inclusion and banking starting first in Kenya spreading through much of East Africa. In March of this year, the IGC held a ‘Sub-Regional Workshop on Mobile Money in West Africa’ to explore the challenges and opportunities facing West Africa, as they seek to replicate Kenya’s success with mobile money

New IGC annual report

2015 marked a significant ramp up in the International Growth Centre’s efforts to generate new and collaborative ideas with the aim of reducing poverty and powering growth in our partner countries. Recognising that effective policy comes from researchers and policymakers working together, we have renewed our focus on cultivating an integrated research agenda and deepening in-country relationships to accelerate policy impact

New era for aid: is community driven development the answer?

If you missed the 2016 IGC Growth Week Conference, held at the London School of Economics, get caught up through our blog recaps looking at research highlights and policy insights. This post forms part of our blog recap series, looking at the challenges facing fragile states, and lessons from Afghanistan’s experiences of rebuilding state capability. See here for other growth week recap

Epidemics, ethnicity, and empowerment: a cities recap

If you missed the 2016 IGC Growth Week Conference, held at the London School of Economics, read our blog recaps all this week to get caught up on the best research highlights and policy insights presented at the conference. This post forms part of our blog recap series, looking specifically at ideas on urban development and growth

Risky business: firms, trade and development

If you missed the 2016 IGC Growth Week Conference, held at the London School of Economics, get caught up through our blog recaps looking at research highlights and policy insights. This post forms part of our blog recap series, looking particularly at ideas on firm productivity and trade-led development. See here for other recaps from growth week

The new urban agenda: cities of the future

Emerging from two days of discussion and debate on cities at the recent IGC Cities Conference, the challenge that resonated most widely from both research and policy participants was how urban infrastructure can be adapted to accommodate rising levels of urban density

Post 2015: growth and the new sustainable development agenda

In the first of the Africa at LSE, IGC and South Asia at LSE cross-blog series on the Sustainable Development Goals, Paul Collier and Upaasna Kaul argue that achieving the new UN Global Goals will require governments to refocus policy agendas on growth. Substantial poverty reduction will only be achieved through inclusive and sustainable growth. The challenge is not simply to create more jobs, but to also develop market structures, public institutions, and urban infrastructures to support the creation of higher value, more productive jobs

#PoweringGrowth: 3 new facts from the IGC Energy Conference

In today’s blog, we bring you highlights from the recent IGC Energy Conference, capturing new ideas and evidence on policies to fight energy poverty. Most of these are fresh findings that haven’t been published yet

The new urban agenda (part 2): urban complementarities

Following on from our recap of the policy takeaways at the recent IGC Cities conference, today’s blog highlights a number of innovative and exciting academic studies that were presented

Graduation: what’s next for ultra-poor programmes?

Results are in: Research shows that BRAC’s one-shot, ‘big-push’ intervention targeting the ultra-poor with assets and skills can lift extreme households onto a more sustainable path out of poverty. In this blog we presented updated findings on the long-term impact and sustainability of the approach from studies showcased at the recent IGC-BRAC conference: Tackling extreme poverty: Evidence from the field