Since the late 1970s, NGOs have played an increasingly prominent role in the development sector, widely praised for their strengths as innovative and grassroots-driven organisations with the desire and capacity to pursue participatory and people-centred forms of development and to fill gaps left...

This paper evaluates the major options for reformulating the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Our purpose is to add weight and direction to emerging thinking on MDG reformulation in a way that: reaffirms the importance of global efforts to reduce extreme poverty; overcomes the problems...

Poor urban people in Bangladesh are already experiencing numerous climate-related problems because of their multiple forms of vulnerability and multiple sources of deprivation. Their problems differ greatly, both within and across settlements and cities, and so do the practices by which they are...

This paper identifies key processes shaping the microfinance sector in the coming decades. The paper examines the geography of microfinance, highlighting differing evolution patterns and challenges across the world. It looks at the widespread adoption of a financial systems approach in the...

The concept and practice of social protection in developing countries has advanced at an astonishing pace over the last decade or so. There is a growing consensus around the view that social protection constitutes an effective response to poverty and vulnerability in developing countries, and an...

This paper looks at the establishment and evolution of the iconic Grameen Bank of Bangladesh. It traces the development of the Bank from its origins, providing microcredit to poor, rural women in Bangladesh, through a period of national expansion and institutionalisation, to the replication...

The Social Assistance in Developing Countries Database is a user-friendly tool that provides summary information on social assistance interventions in developing countries. It provides a summary of the evidence available on the effectiveness of social assistance interventions in developing...

Around 40 percent of Bangladesh's population are poor people for whom a variable and unpredictable climate can critically restrict livelihood options. This is true in rural and urban areas alike, but this study focuses on the latter. Urban poverty continues to be neglected in research, policy...

This paper provides an overview of the recent extension of social protection in sub-Saharan Africa. It identifies two main ‘models' of social protection in the region: the Southern Africa and Middle Africa models. It then assesses the contrasting policy processes behind these models and...

This paper argues that two ideas - human development and results-based management - have been particularly significant in shaping the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). These are unlikely intellectual bedfellows, but by charting the evolution of the MDGs their many influences are demonstrated....