People

Professor David Hulme

Role

David Hulme is CEO at ESID. He is also Professor of Development Studies and Executive Director of the Global Development Institute at The University of Manchester. From 2000 to 2010 he was Director at the Chronic Poverty Research Centre.

Research

David’s personal research focus within ESID is on political economic analysis (PEA). Governance has become a fixture of mainstream development policy, but it is not yet clear whether the new set of ideas implied by governance and PEA is actually transforming aid practices and relationships on the ground.
David is currently working with Pablo Yanguas on a comparative study of PEA use by the World Bank and the UK Department for International Development (DFID) in Ghana, Uganda and Bangladesh. He also published a working paper with Laura Routley reviewing the literature on the emerging phenomenon of PEA approaches within development agencies and examining its impact on the effectiveness of their programmes.

Other roles

Among other appointments, David is  an academician of the Academy of Social Sciences, a board member of the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, and vice-chair of the Economic Social Research Council/DFID Poverty Alleviation Research Grants Committee.
David supervises PhD students with interests in results-based and adaptive development cooperation; and the politics of planning and construction of dams in Tanzania, Ethiopia and Uganda.

ESID publications

Yusuf, Y. B. and Hulme, D. (2019). ‘Service delivery reform in Nigeria: The rise and fall of the Conditional Grant Scheme to Local Government Areas (CGS to LGAs)‘. ESID Working Paper No. 114. Manchester.
Abdulai, A.-G. and Hulme, D. (2014). ‘The politics of regional inequality in Ghana: state elites, donors and PRSPs‘, ESID Working Paper No. 41.
Routley, L. and Hulme, D. (2013). ‘Donors, development agencies and the use of political economic analysis: getting to grips with the politics of development?‘. ESID Working Paper No. 19. Manchester.
Yanguas, P. and Hulme, D. (2014). ‘Can aid bureaucracies think politically? The administrative challenges of political economy analysis (PEA) in DFID and the World Bank‘. ESID Working Paper No. 33. Manchester.
Hulme, D. and Yanguas, P. ‘Mainstreaming political economy analysis in donor agencies‘. ESID Briefing Paper No. 5. Manchester.
Hulme, D., Savoia, A. and Sen, K. (2014). ‘Governance as a global development goal? Setting, measuring and monitoring the Post-2015 Development Agenda‘. ESID Working Paper No. 32. Manchester.
All ESID Working and Briefing Papers are available here.

Other recent publications

Turner,  M., Hulme, D. and McCourt, W. (2015). Governance, Management and Development (2nd Edition): Making the State Work. Macmillan.
Poverty in Development Thought: Symptoms or Causes…Synthesis or Uneasy Compromise? (2013, Hulme, BWPI Working Paper No. 180).
Wilkinson, R. and Hulme, D. (eds.) (2012). The Millennium Development Goals and Beyond: Global Development After 2015. Routledge.
Hulme, D. (2010). Global Poverty: How Global Governance is Failing the Poor. Routledge.
Hanlon, J., Barrientos, A. and Hulme, D. (2010). Just Give Money to the Poor: The Development Revolution from the Global South. Kumarian.
Moore, K., Hulme, D., Lawson, D. and Matin, I. (2010). What Works for the Poorest? Poverty Reduction Programmes for the World’s Extreme Poor. Practical Action.
Addison, T., Hulme, D. and Kanbur, R. (2009). Poverty Dynamics: Interdisciplinary Perspectives. Oxford University Press.

Further information

View Professor David Hulme’s staff profile.
Ideas @ IDRC : Listen to David Hulme as he responds to questions about development.
Read David Hulme’s staff spotlight on our blog.