ABSTRACT Influenced by the public policy literature, we introduce a first-ever community energy co-operative policy index that this literature suggests could help put citizen-funded, owned and democratically governed renewable energy projects on the policy agenda. Combining qualitative and quantitative data into a single measure, our index counts and assigns weights (based on a review of the relevant literature) to, the full suite of community energy policy instruments currently being used by Canada's 10 provincial energy jurisdictions. We argue the index can help move community energy on the policy agenda by equipping policymakers with a tool kit of relevant policies, effectively helping spread policy ideas from innovative to laggard jurisdictions. For community energy policy entrepreneurs, the index helps them focalise scarce policymaker attention, initiate conversations, shift policy debates and ultimately create the conditions for a “punctuated equilibrium” that could foster the kinds of policies that would help RECs exit their niche and become major contributors to net-zero objectives. While developed in the Canadian context, we suggest it could be used anywhere with suitable modifications.

ABSTRACT This paper analyzes the evolution of Latin American social protection systems during the inclusionary period from the beginning of the 2000s to the mid-2010s. Using microdata from household surveys across 17 countries, we build a traditional composite measure that provides a macro-level valuation of social protection (the Social Protection Aggregate Index, SPAI). We also propose an innovative index at the individual level (social protection deprivation index, SPDI) that measures deprivation in social protection using Alkire and Foster’s method. Both measures reveal significant improvements in social protection – through aggregate coverage and declines in individual deprivations – in all countries between 2002 and 2016. The change is mostly concentrated between 2002 and 2012. The most significant variations occurred in countries classified as intermediate in terms of social protection system development, whereas changes in countries from the least advantaged group were minimal. By providing quantitative comparative evidence through SPAI and SPDI, we contribute to improving our understanding of how aggregate-level changes in social protection affected individual experiences. They also provide a more nuanced assessment of how different groups of countries experienced the inclusionary period in such a heterogeneous region.

ABSTRACT Care lies at the heart of human flourishing and is essential for sustainable environmental and socio-economic systems, yet it remains systematically unrecognized, undervalued and unequally distributed. This Comment examines the human right to care as a potential catalyst for transformative development policies through its capacity to confront and redress persistent inequalities while reinforcing connections between communities and the environment. By exploring feminist agroecology as one pathway for implementing the right to care and specifically “food care” in the context of developing capabilities, we argue that care is both instrumental to achieving other human rights and capabilities and intrinsically valuable for human flourishing.

ABSTRACT Bridging the disability employment gap requires comprehensive and integrated policies as well as the provision of person-centred services. These include tools and procedures aimed at assessing the evolving situation of disabled workers in accordance with a bio-psycho-social model of disability. Since its introduction, the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF) has served as a foundational framework, providing a common language for assessing employability. However, some limitations weaken its usability. The Capability Approach (CA), with its emphasis on agency, participation, and well-being, can provide a complementary analytical lens. This article presents findings from the deployment of a digital tool, “VINIL”, which integrates both the ICF and CA frameworks to deliver a comprehensive, tailored assessment of the employability of persons with disabilities (PwD) in Tuscany, Italy. Developed through a co-creation process involving over 100 participants, VINIL was utilised to assess the employability of 2,025 PwD. The implementation demonstrated that an ICF-CA-based assessment can significantly improve the prospects of individuals with disability in obtaining and maintaining meaningful employment. Additionally, by generating valuable aggregated data, the VINIL tool provided policymakers with crucial insights to inform more effective and inclusive employment policies.

ABSTRACT Despite international healthcare charters supporting the principle that children should be listened to during healthcare encounters, children still struggle to have their views heard in healthcare. The aim of this study was to understand children’s and young people’s views of expressing their views and having those views heard in Australian healthcare. Child-centred qualitative research was the methodology employed and “Draw, write and tell” methods [Angell et al. (2015). “‘Draw, Write and Tell’: A Literature Review and Methodological Development on the ‘Draw and Write’ Research Method.” Journal of Early Childhood Research 13 (1): 17–28. https://doi.org/10.1177/1476718X14538592] were used to collect data from twenty children and young people between the ages of 7 and 18 years. An inductive qualitative content analysis identified a process whereby children move from a place of dependence towards independence and developing capability in having a voice in their own healthcare. Drawing on work from Brando, Nico [(2020). “Children's Abilities, Freedom, and the Process of Capability-Formation.” Journal of Human Development and Capabilities 21 (3): 249–262. https://doi.org/10.1080/19452829.2020.1767547], it was identified that this process relied on the existence of development opportunities (zones of proximal development) and the conversion factors of time, health professional relationships, communication, teamwork and family support. Identifying this process is an important step in understanding how health professionals can support children to develop capability to have a voice in their healthcare. This is the first known study to use a capability approach to examine how children develop their voices and move from dependence towards independence in healthcare.

ABSTRACT The age of polycrisis – including the COVID-19 pandemic, climate related disasters, the war in Ukraine and related pressures on the global economy – is well known to have negatively impacted global socioeconomic outcomes. Due to time lags in data reporting, the full impact of the multiple crises is not yet reflected in the 2024 SDG Index. This work aims to fill this gap by providing a framework for tracking progress towards specific SDGs and measuring dimensions of resilience of national socioeconomic systems. We assess the progress of countries around the globe towards achieving SDG targets before and after the COVID period for five SDGs where data is available. We find for SDG 1: End Poverty; SDG 2: End Hunger; SDG 4: Education and SDG 5: Gender equality that both in the short (2020–2022) – as well as the medium (2020–2026) term following the COVID period, all countries experience persistent negative setbacks in achieving SDGs resulting in an increase in estimated time to complete targets for all income groups when compared to the 2012–2019 period. We find for SDG 3: Health – similar results; though only for Low and Lower Middle-Income Countries do we find negative setbacks to achieving SDG 3 targets post-COVID.

ABSTRACT As we mark the anniversary of the publication of the 2030 Agenda mid-term report, the world’s nations stand at a crossroads. While off-track in achieving most Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), multiple crises have further exposed deep inequalities and vulnerabilities in the current dominant approach centred on economic growth and resource allocations. In this editorial paper, scholars of the human development and capability association and editors of the Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, express our deep concern at the lack of progress towards the SDGs. We argue for prioritising human development rather than economic growth and for putting human agency at the centre of development policy. This agency-centric approach includes the implementation of feedback systems for assessing human development progress through broader grassroots participation and relies critically on strengthening state capacities, safeguarding human rights, and promoting democracy.

ABSTRACT The article suggests that putting the enhancement of capability to aspire and capability for voice centre stage of the design and implementation of social policies would entail a deep-seated transformation of such policies. Based on the receiver-doer-judge framework we explore what conditions are to be fulfilled to implement such a transformation, emphasising how the expansion of objective opportunity and entitlement sets should go hand in hand with an increased subjective sense of opportunity and entitlement. We then turn to examine what such transformed institutions would imply in terms of enhancing individual aspirations and capabilities on the one hand and increasing capacity for collective action and social change on the other one, emphasising the key role of capability for voice in both respects. We show how institutions and policies transformed in such a way would differ from dominant approaches to social policies such as social investment, which endorse a more adaptive approach to social policy. It is also suggested how Freire, Dewey and Khader’s ideas could be useful reference points towards the design and implementation of such transformed institutions.

ABSTRACT In both academic and public debate, there is an increasing consensus that digital labour platforms can have both positive and negative impacts on digital workers’ well-being. This article has two aims: the first is to evaluate this impact through the multidimensional lens of the capability approach, taking the food-delivery sector in the city of Verona as a case study. The second aim is to involve selected riders in a co-theorising process to imagine how platforms should be designed to become capability enablers. To reach them, the research combines two different qualitative methods: a covert auto-ethnography, during which the author worked for a food-delivery platform, and a series of in-depth semi-structured interviews, inspired by the dynamic public reflective equilibrium technique. In addition to contributing to the principles that should govern platforms’ design, this article makes two specific contributions to the existing literature on the capability approach. Methodologically, it contributes to the so-called list debate by proposing a synthesising method for selecting capabilities that combines philosophical and empirical insights. Theoretically, it frames the relevant capabilities which were identified during the research under a meta-capability for meaningful work, opening the path to a multi-level analysis of a flourishing life’s different dimensions.

ABSTRACT Empowerment projects and research have focused on marginalised women, but often with less attention to the intersectional and relational conditions affecting their marginalisation. Ethnic minority women in Vietnam have multiple marginalising conditions, and they are targeted by government programmes to increase their participation in labour markets, their income, and their empowerment. Yet what the empowerment process looks like and achieves for these women is an important area for further study. This paper draws on a mixed-methods longitudinal study of an economic empowerment and livelihoods project that involved Hmong and Dao households in Vietnam. The quantitative data showed differences in women’s and men’s empowerment as measured on the A-WEAI, and among the different ethnic groups. Given these differences, we explored how power relations in the household and in the community affected Hmong and Dao women’s empowerment differently. We used a relational capabilitiarian approach to analyse the relations between men and women as well as the community structures that affected empowerment and wellbeing. The analysis shows that women’s and men's sharing of information, resources and workload are critical for improving women’s livelihoods and wellbeing, but these processes look different for Hmong and Dao women, and they are affected by different social structures.