Almost two decades have passed since ‘emerging donors’– new providers of development cooperation – began to attract the attention of ‘traditional donors'. Comprehensive comparisons of the various features of different types of donors have thus been elaborated on as their economic and political roles have solidified. Subsequently, the focus has also expanded to cover the growing significance of cooperation between ‘new donors’ themselves, beyond high-profile groups such as the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). This issue of the IDS Bulletin is a collaboration between the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) Research Institute and the Institute of Development Studies (IDS). The studies are dedicated to highlighting the actual and potential contribution of a wider range of donors, and are intended to help compensate for imbalances in existing literature, contribute to scholarly understanding, and offer informative insights for practical policy deliberation. More fundamentally, this issue questions the explicit and implicit underlying assumptions in examining the issue of development cooperation: namely, the dichotomy of ‘traditional’ and ‘emerging’ donors. The subjects covered in the various articles range from exploring the importance of knowledge in the development cooperation experience of emerging economies; the challenges involved in the policy formulation and implementation of triangular cooperation within a sometimes contradictory set of processes embedded in South–South cooperation; the dynamics of ‘two-way interaction’ between donors and recipients in chains of knowledge creation; and there is an important reassessment of the critical data upon which estimates of China’s foreign aid disbursements are made and understood in international comparison.

Since the publication of the 2004 World Development Report, a range of different attempts have been made to make the design, prioritisation and delivery of health services more accountable to different stakeholders. However, complex politics and power dynamics can limit or skew people’s abilities to access services or hold them to account, particularly for poor and marginalized people.

In July 2017, the IDS hosted a workshop in collaboration with Future Health Systems, the Impact Initiative, the Open Society Foundations, Unequal Voices, and Health Systems Global, to develop new thinking and practical approaches to improving accountability relationships and processes in favour of greater health equity.

This new issue of the IDS Bulletin focusses on three principal themes that emerged from this workshop as needing particular attention. First, the nature of accountability politics ‘in time’ and the importance of longitudinal approaches to change. Second, the contested politics of ‘naming’ and measuring accountability, and the intersecting dimensions of marginalisation and exclusion that are missing from current debates. Third, the shifting nature of power in global health and new configurations of health actors, social contracts, and the role of technology.

For the first time in IDS Bulletin history, themes are explored not only in text but also through multimedia contributions. This expansion into other forms of communication is explicitly aimed at galvanising larger numbers of people in a movement towards Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and the linked agenda of accountability for health equity. The content of this issue reflects the fact that while the desired outcome might be the same – better health for all – accountability strategies are as diverse as the contexts in which they have developed.

This IDS Bulletin Archive Collection reviews four decades of analysis and research on peace, security, and development, drawing on articles published in previous issues of the Bulletin throughout this timeframe. IDS first began to investigate the relationship between disarmament and development in the 1970s. Then, research focused initially on disarmament and its actual and potential contributions to development. Disarmament, along with reductions in military spending, it was argued, would release resources for development. It would also break the cycles of militarisation which propelled violent conflicts in many parts of the developing world.  

After the end of the Cold War, development research engaged more and more directly with conflict prevention and peace-building. The focus then turned towards security in a global context, in which donor agencies involved themselves directly with security questions. As shown by the articles in this edition, work at IDS has been distinctive in three respects: first, in interrogating the multiple meanings and forms of security – international, national, military, personal, livelihood, food, environmental, etc. –  and how these interconnect, or indeed clash; second, in tracing the complex links between global, national, local, and personal security; and third, in its insistence that security be inclusive, drawing upon the experience and agency of the people and groups who are ‘developed’ and ‘secured’. The pieces reprinted in this Archive Collection help analyse shifts in focus over the four decades, before highlighting that it may be time to revisit disarmament, as a tangible policy goal, in these present times of chronic insecurity and increasing violence.

There is currently much talk of the private sector role in nutrition, and whether the state can ‘shape’ the market to deliver better nutritional outcomes.  This issue of the IDS Bulletin presents research findings in this area, developed by the consortium of research partners under the Leveraging Agriculture for Nutrition in South Asia (LANSA) programme.

The IDS Bulletin aims to analyse existing (or potential) agri-food value chain pathways for delivering nutritious foods from agriculture to vulnerable populations in South Asia. It discusses the role of both public and private actors in making these value chains more effective in achieving sustained increased consumption of nutrient-rich foods.

In comparing the different pathways, this set of articles warns against the assumption that increasing the supply of certain products will directly lead to increased consumption. It highlights how, in South Asia, interventions or policies that try to enhance these pathways often struggle because of a mix of supply, distribution, marketing, and consumption challenges.

This IDS Bulletin argues that the key to sustainable food systems might be a ‘food sovereignty’ approach. This calls for awareness at all levels of decision-making – public, private and civil society – in the promotion of nutrition-sensitive value chains, emphasising the need for a stronger government role in shaping agri-food value chain pathways. By looking at the limits of what business can and cannot achieve in a given market environment, the IDS Bulletin provides insights to policymakers about how to create an appropriate institutional environment that shapes how these value chains operate for the benefit of nutritionally vulnerable target groups.