ID100: Key Questions for International Development

At a time when the need to address political, socioeconomic and environmental issues globally is becoming ever more urgent, the formation of a new development framework is a critical moment to help define the agenda. A new open-access paper, A Hundred Key Questions for the Post-2015 Development Agenda, is set to make a major contribution to discussion and to how research can best respond to the new framework.

The paper, from the Sheffield Institute for International Development (SIID) and the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD), arose from ID100, a broad participatory consultative exercise facilitated by a team of researchers based at SIID. The exercise identified and established priorities for policy and research in collaboration with NGOs, academics, think tanks, governmental agencies and international organisations from 35 countries.

During the initial six-month consultation a global community, involving more than 700 practitioners, researchers, policy-makers and civil society, was invited to submit the questions it believed key to addressing the world’s most urgent political, socioeconomic and environmental issues. These 700 questions were then whittled down to 100 during a two-day workshop involving 35 experts from policy, practice and academia.

The questions cover a wide range of issues, grouped into nine overarching themes. They include a combination of long-standing problems – such as the rights of women and of vulnerable groups such as small-scale farmers or people with disabilities – as well as new challenges emerging from recent socio-political and environmental changes – such as the role of business in protecting human rights, and information and communication technologies as tools for empowerment.

Jean Grugel, who will be joining the OU’s Politics and International Studies department in June as Professor of Global Politics, was one of the leads in the paper’s co-production, while IKD member and Professor of Social Policy, Nicola Yeates, was one of the 35 experts who participated in the research.

Read more on SIID's ID100 website.

Read A Hundred Key Questions for the Post-2015 Development Agenda.