At the turn of the millennium, government leaders from around the world committed themselves to a series of eight goals to advance the cause of international development in the early part of this century. Crucial among them was a target to reduce by half the proportion of the population living in extreme poverty by 2015.
Five years later, at the "Millennium Plus Five" summit at the United Nations in autumn 2005, it was clear that the task ahead to meet this and the other targets was massive: more than a billion people still survive on less than a dollar a day, and 20,000 people die each day from preventable diseases.
...fighting poverty is an extremely complex business, and policy interventions can fail in their desired effect for a multiplicity of reasons. In other words, money is not everything.
Anti-poverty campaigners tend to highlight lack of political and financial commitment from the richer parts of the world as key reasons for the slow progress in dealing with this most intractable problem of our times. Other, more subtle barriers arise from the fact that fighting poverty is an extremely complex business, and policy interventions can fail in their desired effect for a multiplicity of reasons. In other words, money is not everything.
It is here that social scientists believe they can help, as development policies grounded in sound research and analysis may be more likely to avoid the pitfalls of ineffectiveness and unwanted negative impacts. Yet many feel there have been too few opportunities to pursue the kind of research that could address development issues from new perspectives, and that may challenge the established way of doing things. It has also been difficult for social science researchers in developing countries to get funding and support for projects aimed at improving the theoretical basis of anti-poverty policies.
Partly to address some of these problems, the ESRC has teamed up with the Department for International Development (DFID) to fund research projects linked to the poverty reduction agenda.
The scheme which is open to international researchers, is awarding £13.5 million over five years, and is now in its second year. The Director of the project at the ESRC, Steve Morgan, explains the background: "Agendas for international development are heavily influenced by western donors, and by multi-lateral international organisations. The policy imperatives emerging from such agendas have tended to influence the social science agendas of western academics, partly in pursuit of research funding provided by the donor agencies.
"However, there is a need for more reflective long-term work, or development of new theoretical or methodological approaches, that are not confined to addressing current orthodoxy or policy imperatives."
Steve Morgan says the challenge of the scheme is for social scientists to conduct research that combines academic rigor with the potential to have real impacts on the poverty agenda. He rejects the idea that research must be either theoretical or practical - academic quality and wider impact can and should be two sides of the same coin, according to Morgan.
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