Insights

Our insights give our experts and partners from across the world the platform to provide insight into key events, updates on ongoing research, and share experiences from their work

People in a plenary room cheering and clapping.

Making global trade rules work for small-scale fisheries

Annabelle Bladon
28 October 2026

Woman outdoors holding a large container overflowing with freshly harvested cilantro/coriander.

Women’s tenure rights for gender-responsive coherence across the Rio Conventions

Karen Wong Pérez and Omaira Bolaños
14 October 2026

Farmer standing in their field in Cambodia, checking on harvest.

Locally-led restoration: the critical link between land, nature, climate and people

Dilys Roe and Francesca Booker
13 October 2026

A group of women working in a field in India, wearing traditional dress.

What will count as progress in the first global review? We need a gender-just evidence system

Karen Wong Pérez and Amelia Arreguín Prado
05 October 2026

Members of the San Lorenzo de Lomerío Indigenous community demonstrating in Santa Rita de Monteverde how they transfer native bee colonies from fallen logs to specially designed hives.

Bees, nuts and medicinal plants bring many benefits in Bolivia’s Chiquitano dry forest

Alice Gerow
01 October 2026

A man on a small boat maintains his balance as he draws in a net.

Is culture the missing ingredient in the biodiversity economy?

Dilys Roe and Krystyna Swiderska
28 September 2026

Two indigenous women from Egypt, dressed in traditional clothing, are checking on plants.

Breaking the ‘research aristocracy’: why climate resilience must be co-produced

Sheela Patel
11 September 2026

Amid an arid landscape with mountains in the background, several people are pictured holding bundles of branches.

Five steps to accelerate finance for climate resilience

Mohsen Gul and Tom Mitchell
09 September 2026

Podcasts

Our Make Change Happen podcast offers insights into our work to create positive change

Longreads

Browse our longreads for in-depth storytelling and visuals on a variety of topics

Authors

See a list of IIED's authors, together with our community of expert guest authors

About IIED insights

Why we write, and how to share and re-use our work

Insight series

Read our series of insights and articles on key areas of our work

Countdown to COP15

A series of insights raising the profile of locally-led action on the road to and after the COP15 global biodiversity conference

Social movements for climate justice

A series of insights and interviews exploring the vital role social movements play in prompting climate action and climate justice

The transition to a predominantly urban world

A series of insights and interviews designed to share the experiences of community leaders, professionals, researchers and government from the global South

What works for women’s land rights?

A series of insights looking at ways to strengthen women’s access to and control over land in Africa

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Pre-emptive controlled burning in Belize is preventing severe uncontrolled wild fires during the driest months (Photo: Toledo Institute for Development and Environment)

Flaming parrots and palmetto palms

Insight, 08 February 2016

Sorting apricots in Tajikistan. The diverse and extreme climatic conditions of Central Asia helped farmers develop fruit varieties adaptable to drought and other environmental stresses (Photo: UNDP, Creative Commons via Flickr)

The Paris Agreement – a framework for local inclusion

Insight, 05 February 2016

A street barber in Kolkata, India. It is estimated that the city has nearly 2m street traders (Photo: Nicolas Mirguet, Creative Commons via Flickr)

The other half of the future – business' informal sector

Insight, 04 February 2016

The Deccan Development society works with poor women in Andhra Pradesh, India. It facilitates a network of women seedkeepers who conserve and exchange seeds (Photo: Deccan Development Society)

Why women's empowerment is essential for sustainable development

Insight, 02 February 2016

Pakistan's Sarhad Rural Support programme deals with constant uncertainty and disruptive events. Here goods are delivered to flood victims in Chitral (Photo: Gul Hamaad Farooqui, Creative Commons via Flickr)

What can Southern NGOs teach us about disruptive change?

Insight, 26 January 2016

Surveys of the priorities of the private sector often ignore vital informal economies, such as this one in Hanoi (Photo: Bill Vorley/IIED)

Shaking up the private sector

Insight, 22 January 2016

Representatives of Indonesia communities discussed ways to improve urban conditions at the third Urban Social Forum (Photo: Fabrizio Salvatori)

Indonesian civil society discusses its urban future

Insight, 21 January 2016

An Ethiopian government delegation learns about energy innovations in a climate smart village in Kenya. Ethiopia's government hopes to combine climate resilience with economic growth (Photo: CGIAR, Creative Commons via Flickr)

What's happening to aid to the Least Developed Countries?

Insight, 18 January 2016

Food vendors give people living in Nairobi's informal settlements easy access to fresh food (Photo: Grace Githiri)

Nourishing livelihoods: the food vendors sustaining Nairobi's slums

Insight, 15 January 2016

A riverbank settlement in Indonesia illustrates the vulnerability of residents to both flooding and pollution (Photo: Isabelle Lemaire/IIED)

Comparing approaches to riverbank vulnerability in Indonesia

Insight, 08 January 2016

A local farmer uses manual callipers to measure a tree. Measuring trees in person can be cheaper and just as accurate (Photo: Geoff Wells)

The Paris Agreement, SDGs and simple local monitoring

Insight, 07 January 2016

New Melones Lake, California, which is facing one of the most severe droughts on record with a state of emergency declared in January (Photo: Ben Amstutz, Flickr, via Creative Commons)

2016 – when global meets local in climate action

Insight, 04 January 2016

Two of the 20 questions in last year's environment and development quiz. After learning lots of lessons, we have produced another one this year... (Image: IIED)

A quiz-ical look at Christmas content

Insight, 24 December 2015

Slash and burn, pictured in the Mopeia district, Zambezia province, Mozambique, has a noble motive – feeding families - but it is not sustainable (Photo: Isilda Nhantumbo/IIED)

REDD+: missionaries, conservation fortresses and the politics of carbon landscapes in Africa

Insight, 23 December 2015

US special climate envoy Todd Stern tells journalists his views on the 'Higher Ambition Coalition'. LDC chair Giza Gaspar-Martins in second left on the panel at the press conference (Photo: Matt Wright/IIED)

A symbolic victory on 1.5 degrees for LDC Group in Paris

Insight, 18 December 2015

An area of forest in Tanzania, where REDD+ activities have included the support of community land use planning and the provision of alternative livelihoods (Photo: Wikipedia Commons)

Tackling deforestation as part of climate action

Insight, 17 December 2015

Villagers dig out a silted up water tank, paid for by India's National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (Photo: Mackay Savage, Creative Commons via Wikimedia)

Finding solutions for less poverty and better ecosystems

Insight, 15 December 2015

COP21 president Laurent Fabius (second right) and UNFCCC executive secretary Christiana Figueres (second left) celebrate the Paris Agreement (Photo: UNclimatechange, Creative Commons via Flickr)

A historic agreement in Paris

Insight, 14 December 2015

A market in Fort Portal (Photo: Sister Haiti, Creative Commons via Flickr)

Making sure Fort Portal's 'modernisation' plan feeds the poor

Insight, 11 December 2015

Fatima Denton, a member of IIED’s Independent Expert Group, speaking at the Development and Climate Days conference (Photo: Matt Wright)

Zero carbon – costs and opportunities for Least Developed Countries

Insight, 10 December 2015

Angola aims to achieve its mitigation goals through the promotion of renewable energy, stabilisation of agricultural emissions, carbon sequestration from the forestry sector and other activities (Photo: jbdodane, Creative Commons via Flickr)

Climate finance is vital to secure a future worth having

Insight, 09 December 2015

Mary Robinson addresses the Development and Climate Days, with (from left to right), Katharine Mach, IPCC; Claudia Martinez, CDKN; Janos Pasztor, UN (Photo: Climate Centre, Creative Commons via Flickr)

Mary Robinson: global solidarity needed to confront climate crisis

Insight, 09 December 2015

A cup of coffee. We are drinking more coffee: the International Coffee Organisation says world coffee consumption has been rising by an average of 2.3 per cent per year (Photo: Benedicto de Jesus, Creative Commons via Flickr)

A new kind of brew: smallholder coffee and carbon

Insight, 08 December 2015

Waste pickers packing up the recyclable materials, Peru (Photo: Alex Proimos, Creative Commons via Flickr)

Workers in informal economy need say in global environmental agendas

Insight, 07 December 2015