Faculty:Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences
School:Humanities and Social Sciences
Location: Cambridge
Areas of Expertise: Politics and international relations , Policy
Research Supervision:Yes
Solava's main research areas are: The politics of voice and marginalisation; the dynamics of political change in the Middle East; and challenges of grassroots-led development; regional expertise: Egypt, Senegal and the UK.
Solava is an affiliated lecturer at the Centre of Development Studies at University of Cambridge. For five years, she the Director of the MSc in Poverty, Inequality and Development at the Global Development Institute at the University of Manchester. She was also a research fellow in Global Poverty Reduction at the Brooks World Poverty Institute and the Chronic Poverty Research Centre at the University of Manchester and worked as Assistant Professor of Political Science at the American University in Cairo.
Her publications include articles in Third World Quarterly, Oxford Development Studies and Journal of Human Development and Capabilities. She also published a co-edited book The Capability Approach: From Theory to Practice (2014) and a monograph on The Role of Local Councils in Empowerment and Poverty Reduction in Egypt (2007).
Supervision of potential PhD researchers will be considered, esp. those wishing to work on the politics of the Middle East; youth-state relations, and exploring the impact of political change on marginalised groups in different socio-economic contexts.
Ibrahim, S. 2017. How to Build Collective Capabilities: The 3C-Model for Grassroots-led Development, Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, Jan 2017.
Ibrahim, S. and M. Tiwari (Eds.) 2014. The Capability Approach: From Theory to Practice, Palgrave MacMillan. ISBN: 9781137001443.
Tiwari, M. and S. Ibrahim. 2012. ‘Sustainable Human Development at Grassroots: Different Contexts, Similar Ingredients?’ Oxford Development Studies, 40 (1), pp. 69-85.
Ibrahim, S. 2011. A Tale of Two Egypts: contrasting state-reported macro-trends with micro-voices of the poor, Third World Quarterly, 32:7, pp. 1347-1368.
Ibrahim, S. and S. Alkire. 2007. ‘Agency and Empowerment: A proposal for internationally comparable indicators’, Oxford Development Studies, vol. 35 (4) pp.379-403.
Ibrahim, S. 2006. ‘From Individual to Collective Capabilities: the Capability Approach as a Conceptual Framework for Self-help’, Journal of Human Development, vol.7 (3) pp. 397-416.
Ibrahim, S. 2007. The Role of Local Councils in Empowerment and Poverty Reduction in Egypt, Cairo, American University in Cairo Press, ISBN: 9774160142.
Solava has organised two workshops jointly with Tostan International as part of the ESRC project 'What Works for Grassroots-led Development' project and she also helped organise the CPRC 2010 Conference on Ten years of 'war against poverty'.
Solava is one of the BBC's Expert Women North and has conducted interviews with numerous TV and radio stations in the UK.