European Delegation of Funds

A research facility to better understand inequalities

A European facility for a research program on inequalities in developing and emerging countries
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First Phase of the EU-AFD Research Facility on Inequalities
The French Agency for Development (AFD) has received 4 million euros from the European Commission’s Directorate-General for International Cooperation and Development (DEVCO). This funding is being used to implement and coordinate a research facility over a three-year period (2017-2020) that aims to finance 22 research projects on inequalities in developing and emerging countries. The research projects will be implemented by donors and research centers from the North and the South.

OBJECTIVES AND ACTIONS

 

 

The objective of the first phase of the Facility was twofold:

  • To better understand socio-economic inequalities, their determinants, their evolution and their effects in order to better respond to them in terms of public policies
  • Promote common strategies on inequalities between EU Member States, in the framework of the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals. The final objective was thus to better coordinate the various European strategies and to strengthen the contribution of the European Union's development cooperation agencies to the reduction of inequalities.

Within this framework, the following activities were carried out: 

  • Conducting thematic and global research on the determinants and dynamics of socio-economic inequalities in developing and emerging countries, in partnership with research centres.
  • Implementation of research projects in partnership with research centres and governments in selected countries and cities to meet the needs of the countries studied and to create an opportunity for policy dialogue with partner governments on the subject of inequality. 
  • AFD supports partner countries and development institutions in integrating research results into national policies and development cooperation strategies.

New funds granted by the European Commission to AFD in 2020 through the addendum will also enable the activities carried out during the first phase to be expanded. The aim of this addendum is twofold:

Projects

3 types of projects were implemented in the first phase of the Research Facility on Inequalities: 

  1. Global projects to study the determinants and dynamics of socio-economic inequalities in developing and emerging countries. 
  2. City and country projects that respond to the needs of partner countries and aim to support them in developing public policies to reduce inequalities. These projects were carried out in close collaboration with the governments concerned.
  3. Projects that provide tools for better analysis of inequalities in order to better respond to them in terms of public policies and development strategies. These projects have led to the formulation of inequality diagnostics, fiscal impact analyses and the development of methods to measure the distributive effects of development cooperation projects. The first phase of the Facility also led to the preparation by the European Commission of a reference document on how to reduce inequalities through development cooperation.
    New research projects using the methodologies developed during the first phase of the Facility are currently being carried out in the framework of the addendum.
Research Facility Inequalities - Map of Projects
Click to enlarge and see the projets.
 

 

List of selected projects

CITY STUDIES:

COUNTRIES STUDIES:

GLOBAL RESEARCH PROJECTS:

TOOLS:

 

Governance and partners

Schéma de la gouvernance VA

 

The first phase of the Research Facility on Inequalities was organized around 4 committees:

  1. An executive committee: Composed of AFD, DG INTPA and AECID. This committee met twice a year to ensure the management of the projects financed.
  2. A strategic committee: Composed of AFD, DG INTPA and organizations active in the field of inequality. This committee met once a year to define the strategic priorities of the first phase of the Facility and to ensure coordination of Member States around the 2030 Agenda on inequalities.
  3. A scientific committee: Provided by UN Wider through its network of researchers. Its role was to support AFD in the selection and the scientific monitoring of research projects. 
  4. A "Development Policies" working group: Composed of AFD and the governments involved in the country and city research projects. Its objective was to reflect on how the results of the projects could be used in the development of inclusive public policies.

 

Our partners

Results

More than 100 research papers and policy briefs have emerged from the 22 projects conducted during the first phase of the Research Facility on Inequalities. These deliverables are based on the results of research and consultations conducted between 2017 and 2020. They aim to inform governments and development actors on the implementation of more inequality-sensitive public policies. 

The results by project

CITY STUDIES
COUNTRIES STUDIES
GLOBAL RESEARCH PROJECTS
TOOLS

Events

2020
JULY 6
Webinar 7 - “Inequalities and Environmental changes in the Mekong region: a scoping review”
vignette

The seventh webinar of the EU-AFD Research Facility on Inequalities was held on Monday, July 6th and was dedicated to the project Inequalities and environmental changes in the lower Mekong river basin.

This webinar was the last one of this first webinar serie.

Huynh Thi Phuong Linh, researcher at French Institute of Research for Development (IRD) in Ha Noi, has presented the research paper “Inequalities and Environmental changes in the Mekong region: a scoping review”.

Watch replay

2020
JUNE 29
Webinar 6 - "Exploring the dynamics of micro- level consumption inequality in Ghana"
vignette

The sixth webinar of the EU-AFD Research Facility on Inequalities was held on Monday, June 29th and was dedicated to the project The dynamics and interactions of income inequality and inequality of opportunity.

Nkechi Owoo, researcher at Department of Economics, University of Ghana and ACEIR affiliate, has presented the research paper "Exploring the dynamics of micro- level consumption inequality in Ghana".

Watch replay 

2020
JUNE 22
Webinar 5 - "Multidimensional inequality in Western Africa"
vignette

The fifth webinar of the EU-AFD Research Facility on Inequalities, held on Monday, June 22nd, was dedicated to the project Analyzing the multidimensional inequality and impacts of regional policy on inequality.

Ana Claver Muñoz and Cristina Rovira Izquierdo, project manager on inequalities and inequality programme advisor at Oxfam Intermón has presented the research paper "Multidimensional inequality in Western Africa".

Watch replay

2020
JUNE 15
Webinar 4 - "Inequality in public good provision and attitude towards taxation: sub-national evidence from Africa"
vignette

The fourth webinar of the EU-AFD Research Facility on Inequalities dedicated to the project Understanding the role of taxation in the fight against inequalities was held on June 15th.

Marin Ferry, Senior Lecturer at Gustave Eiffel University / Associate Researcher IRD-DIAL has presented the paper "Inequality in public good provision and attitude towards taxation: sub-national evidence from Africa".

Watch replay

2020
JUNE 8
Webinar 3 - “Inequalities related to urban water services in La Paz-El Alto, Bolivia”
vignette

The third webinar of the EU-AFD Research Facility on Inequalities, dedicated to the project Inequalities in urban water services in La Paz and El Alto, was held on Monday, June 8th.

Sarah Botton (AFD research officer) and Patricia Urquieta (CIDES-UMSA researcher), have presented the paper “Inequalities related to urban water services in La Paz-El Alto, Bolivia”.

Watch replay

2020
June 1
Webinar 2 - "Earnings Inequality over the Life-Course in South Africa"
vignette

The second webinar of the EU-AFD Research Facility on Inequalities, dedicated to the project Understanding the dynamics of the earnings distribution in South Africa, was held on June 1st. 

Rocco Zizzamia, research affiliate at ACEIR, SALDRU-UCT and the University of Oxford, has presented the research paper "Earnings Inequality over the Life-Course in South Africa", co- written with Vimal Ranchhod.

Watch replay

2020
MAY 25
Webinar 1 - "Perceptions of Inequality and Social Mobility in Mexico"
vignette

The first webinar of the EU-AFD Research Facility on Inequalities, dedicated to the project Inequalities, Social Mobility and Perceptions in Mexico, was held on May 25th.

Aurora Ramirez Alvarez, Assistant Professor of Economics at El Colegio de Mexico, has presented the research paper “Perceptions of Inequality and Social Mobility” (co-authored with R. M. Campos-Vazquez, A. Krozer, R. De La Torre and R. Velez-Grajales).

Watch replay

2020
March 2 to 4
International seminar “Los desafíos del agua: desigualdad, cambio climático y gobernanza”

La Paz - Bolivia

Download the call for abstracts/proposals (in Spanish)

2020
February 27
Conference "Inequalities, social mobility and perceptions"
2020
February 21
Conference " The distributional impact of social protection: short - and longer - run inequalities"

Addis Ababa - Ethiopia

Download the program

2020
February 20
Workshop "Capital humain hérité, capital social et inégalités en Tunisie"

Tunisia

Download the program (in French)

2020
February 11
Workshop "Stakeholder Engagement Inequalities Diagnostic in South Africa"

South Africa

Download the draft program

2019
November 4
EU-AFD Conference - Inequality and redistribution in low and middle income countries

On November 4th AFD organized a conference on the topic of “Inequality and redistribution in low and middle income countries”. The goal was to discuss the role of redistributive policies as instruments for improving equality of outcome through the redistribution of income and for enhancing equality of opportunity by improving the distribution of income-generating assets, such as human capital and wealth.

Please find here the presentations delivered:

2018
December 6 and 7
13th AFD Conference on Development - Inequalities and Social Cohesion

The conference "Inequalities and Social Cohesion" had the goal to make practitioners and researchers discuss about the issues surrounding inequalities and their consequences for social cohesion.

The conference took place in Paris over two days. The first one, Thursday, December 6th, was an academic day with parallel sessions, at AFD. The second one, December 7th, was dedicated to high-level plenary debates open to a wide public and it was held at the Institut du Monde Arabe.

Conference’s webpage

AFD international conference: There is nothing inevitable about inequalities

2018
December 5
AFD-EU Facility Day

Representatives of all the projects of the Facility met in Paris for a day dedicated to the Inequality Research Facility. Here are the activities of this day:

  • Facility projects’ presentation
  • Strategic Committee meeting. Minutes of the session
  • Executive Committee meeting
  • Thematic sessions with the researchers involved in the projects.
2018
January 15
First public conference of the research facility

AFD held the first public conference on the research facility in Paris, attended by experts from the academic world and international organizations. Titled “Understanding the Global and Local Inequalities”, its objectives were to present the activities and the research program to be funded and to put them into perspective with the current research on inequalities.

Consult the presentation
Consult the minutes

2017
June 14
Kick-off meeting of the research facility

The research facility was presented to the public during a conference held at the European Commission (DG DEVCO), in Brussels.

Interactive map
This map is illustrative and does not list all the projects funded by AFD. Find the complete list of our projects on the opendata.afd.fr portal
Launch search
See map of all projects