The annual PEGNet conference takes place at ETH Zürich on September 11-12, 2017. Given that reducing inequality ranks highly on the SDG agenda, PEGNet 2017 focusses on research and policies addressing national inequalities. The conference provides a platform for leading development researchers, practitioners, and policy makers to discuss drivers of inequality and policies that can reduce it. Amongst other things, the conference features research paper presentations, a policy round-table discussion, and speeches by renowned speakers from academia and policy. Please register here.

The conference is co-organized by the NADEL Center for Development and Cooperation, ETH Zürich, the Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW), the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and supported by the KfW Development Bank.

The fact that Prof. Dr. Stephan Klasen (University of Göttingen) can always give a precise answer to a very complex question and in combination with the academic celebration of his 50th birthday inspired the idea for this book. Isabel Günther, Kenneth Harttgen, Melanie Grosse, and Sebastian Vollmer asked 50 development economists around the world to answer 50 (serious and not-so-serious) questions about development research and policy. It is great to see everyone’s willingness to leave the safety of long-winded answers, by approaching what could be seen as big, complicated questions with short, sometimes witty, and frequently sincere responses. Please download and share the full book for free.

Impact evaluations are a tool for policymakers and development practitioners to improve the impact of their work based on empirical evidence. In order to inspire NGOs to learn from impact evaluations and integrate them into their work, SDC will, for the second time, sponsor two Swiss NGOs working in international development to conduct impact evaluations on their work. We have received proposals for impact evaluations from 30 NGOs. The winners will be announced at ETH Zürich on the 12th of September as part of the PEGNet conference. Details about the call for proposals can be found here. SDC and NADEL have also prepared a comprehensive info sheet entitled “What are Impact Evaluations?”.

Aid for MICs is a controversial issue. Despite the emphasis of donors on providing support above all to Low Income Countries (LICs) it is generally agreed that aid to MICs is justified whenever income and non-income poverty persist at high levels. At the same time is also broadly agreed that the separation between LICs and MICs is not helpful for setting aid priorities, and that more detailed criteria should be used. On behalf of SDC we concluded a methodological study that proposes to determine aid priorities with 4 core criteria (income; poverty and inequality; poverty reduction; and domestic capacities) and 18 quantitative indicators. Based on that explorative study we are now carrying out a modified analysis of the 46 countries in which SDC is engaged with bilateral cooperation. This quantitative analysis will be complemented with interviews of SDC staff about modes of future cooperation with MICs and LICs.

Former MAS students of NADEL might remember the three-month interim report that they had to send to Marie-Laure Müller when they were on their project assignment. This year, we have also asked the MAS students to prepare a “postcard from the field” to share their first experiences with a broader audience. Two of the students have also prepared a short video you can check out: Isabelle Aebersold, working in La Paz, Bolivia on increasing income opportunities for smallholder farmers and Esther Waldmeier working in Pakse, Laos on tourism development and management. Felix Gnehm, Solidar Suisse (MAS cohort 2002-2004) and Christian Durisch, UNAIDS (MAS cohort 2012-2014) were interviewed by the ETH alumni JOBJOURNAL on working in development cooperation. We hope to share more videos, interviews, blogs, etc. from alumni in the future.