Category: Front Page

Webinar Summary: Mapping the Risks of China’s Global Coastal Development to Marine Socio-Ecological Systems

By Kate Chi On Wednesday, May 18, Blake Alexander Simmons, Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Department of Human Dimensions of Natural Resources at Colorado State University, joined the Spring 2022 Global China Research Colloquium to discuss forthcoming research on China’s overseas development finance portfolio and the risks posed to marine habitats, biodiversity and coastal communities. […]

GDP Center Round-Up: Human Capital Initiative Spring 2022 Research Seminars

By Emanne Khan In Spring 2022, the Human Capital Initiative (HCI) hosted two research seminars with visiting scholars who presented new findings and received feedback from fellow experts on study design and methodology. The mission of HCI is to advance interdisciplinary research on the role of human capital in human development to inform policy solutions […]

Restarting Development Finance to Handle Debt Distress in the COVID-19 Era

By Ying Qian The COVID-19 pandemic has levied a brutal force on many emerging and low-income countries: not only their public health systems, but their economies have also suffered from severe contractions, which derailed revenue generation and budget execution. The onslaught of the pandemic has exacerbated the triple crisis of public health, rising poverty and […]

Debt Distress and Development Finance in the COVID-19 Era

The economic shock from the COVID-19 pandemic has set back the development agendas for emerging markets and developing countries. Many developing countries have suffered from severe economic contractions that derailed revenue generation and budget execution and created urgent financing needs. Servicing public debt crowds out fiscal space for investing in a green and equitable recovery […]

Webinar Summary – Chinese Loans to Africa Database: Lending in the Pandemic Era

By Jyhjong Hwang On Thursday, April 28, the Boston University Global Development Policy (GDP) Center hosted a webinar discussion and demonstration of the Chinese Loans to Africa (CLA) Database. The webinar followed the launch of new data and an updated website experience earlier that week. During the webinar, Oyintarelado (Tarela) Moses discussed the main findings […]

Convincing the Mummy-ji: Improving Mother-in-Law Approval of Family Planning in India

Family, as the most basic social institution in the world, has been of longstanding interest to researchers and policymakers alike. Studies of family structure in developed societies have predominantly examined kinship and intrafamilial ties within nuclear family settings, with an extensive literature devoted to marital and parent–child relationships. In contrast, relationships within nonnuclear family structures […]

Institutional Practices, Not Power-Hungry Husbands, Are the Biggest Problem Facing Female Leaders in India

By Emanne Khan Since 1993, India has experienced two competing dynamics. That year, the national government passed the 74th Constitutional Amendment Act, which includes among its provisions that village councils (panchayats) must reserve no less than one-third of seats for women. While the amendment legally granted women an unprecedented level of political representation, long-standing social […]

Are Husbands the Problem?

Since India passed the 1993 Constitutional Amendment mandating quotas for women in government, a critical mass of women have entered local politics. The law was rightly celebrated, but also gave rise to a belief that while women are de jure elected to local office, their husbands de facto run the state. This belief has had […]