Research

The MSc in Urban Management and Development is a 12-month English-taught programme offered in six specialisation tracks. This structure allows IHS students to specialise within their chosen field whilst benefiting from a broader understanding of sustainable urban management offered at IHS. The MSc in Urban Management and Development is a 12-month English-taught programme offered in six specialisation tracks. This structure allows IHS students to specialise within their chosen field whilst benefiting from a broader understanding of sustainable urban management offered at IHS. The MSc in Urban Management and Development is a 12-month English-taught programme offered in six specialisation tracks. This structure allows IHS students to specialise within their chosen field whilst benefiting from a broader understanding of sustainable urban management offered at IHS.

The European Commission supports and complements the Member States’ policies in the fields of social inclusion and social protection. The Europe 2020 strategy for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth sets targets to lift at least 20 million people out of poverty and social exclusion and to increase employment of the population aged 20-64 to 75%. The flagship initiatives of the Europe 2020 strategy, including the Platform against Poverty and Social Exclusion and the Agenda for New Skills and Jobs, support efforts to reach these targets. Through its Social Investment Package, the Commission provides guidance to Member States to modernise their welfare systems towards social investment throughout life. The package complements: Policy framework The European Semester provides the framework for steering and monitoring EU countries’ economic and social reforms to reach the Europe 2020 targets. The challenges and proposed solutions are reflected in the Country-specific Recommendations. As social policies are an integral part of the Europe 2020 Strategy, the Commission also supports EU countries’ efforts to address their social challenges through the actions foreseen in the Platform against Poverty and Social Exclusion and Social Investment Package as well as the EU funds, in particular the European Social Fund.

Gender equality for development is a core theme of i2i work and cuts across all thematic areas. We identify two areas of growth for the current i2i gender analytical agenda: design and test gender strategies in areas where gender-specific constraints have been identified; and build the evidence on gender-specific market failures in underserved areas of impact-evaluation practice. The thematic coverage of the i2i gender program seeks to fill the gaps in four areas identified in the 2012 World Development Report, “Gender Equality and Development”: (i) human capital, (ii) economic productivity, (iii) access to finance, and (iv) empowerment. Overall, over half of the current i2i portfolio is planning a gender-disaggregated analysis, while 19 percent of i2i-supported IEs are testing interventions tailored to address gender issues. i2i supports rigorous evaluations of policy actions that look to relax supply-side constraints (for example, improving service delivery for clean water, sanitation, and maternal care) as well as market and institutional constraints (for example, reducing systematic differences in earnings). In underserved IE research areas, the i2i program places emphasis on documenting gender constraints in the context of infrastructure investments and governance, with special focus on transport, electoral participation, and women’s labor market participation in FCV settings.   The research agenda evolves with i2i’s portfolio, fueling iterative learning. i2i operationalizes this vision by providing technical and financial assistance to policymakers to identify relevant gender issues, designing appropriate policy action, and testing their impact to motivate scale-up, scale-down and, new testing.

Growing up in a clean and safe environment is every child’s right. Access to clean water, basic toilets, and good hygiene practices not only keeps children thriving, but also gives them a healthier start in life. Despite COVID-19 putting the spotlight on the importance of hand hygiene to prevent the spread of disease, three billion people worldwide, including hundreds of millions of school-going children, do not have access to handwashing facilities with soap. People living in rural areas, urban slums, disaster-prone areas and low-income countries are the most vulnerable and the most affected.