Featured image for “Are we allowed to be unimpressed by Nobel prize winners? Hope so.”

Are we allowed to be unimpressed by Nobel prize winners? Hope so.

October 14, 2024
When I heard that the not-quite-Nobel for economics this year had gone to Daron Acemoglu, James Robinson and Simon Johnson I went back to my 2012 review of their breakthrough book, Why Nations Fail. At the time, I had really mixed feelings about it – loved the emphasis on conclusions, but detected an extraordinary level of Western bias on which
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Featured image for “Guest speakers are not enough: this Black History Month, we need to ask where NGOs go from here on racial justice ”

Guest speakers are not enough: this Black History Month, we need to ask where NGOs go from here on racial justice 

October 14, 2024
Oxfam GB racial justice lead Rhaea Russell-Cartwright reflects on how far Oxfam and similar UK-based organisations have come and what they should think about next to deliver on racial justice – including the implications of racist riots in Britain, the need for solidarity across borders and ensuring that celebrations of this month centre the experiences of our Black staff. 
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Featured image for “How my new book unpacks the problem with projects”

How my new book unpacks the problem with projects

October 9, 2024
The “project” is intrinsic to modern international development – yet this basic form of organising our work is not something neutral or benign, says Caitlin Scott, but has real, often distorting, effects on the way development organisations think and act.
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Featured image for “We don’t want your money: why do NGOs refuse donations?”

We don’t want your money: why do NGOs refuse donations?

October 3, 2024
Logan Cochrane and Alexandra Wilson on a fascinating new analysis that identifies four principles that drive NGOs to reject large donations – and if your organisation has turned away money recently, they want to hear from you…
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Featured image for “State of the World (According to The Economist)”

State of the World (According to The Economist)

September 26, 2024
Two excellent (gated) longer essays in last week’s Economist that I thought I would excerpt for you. The first was a graphic and alarming summary of the argument that ‘The world’s poorest countries have experienced a brutal decade’. Some extracts: ‘There are now a billion fewer people subsisting on less than $2.15 a day than in 2000. [But] almost all of
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Featured image for “Book Review: Politics on the Edge, by Rory Stewart”

Book Review: Politics on the Edge, by Rory Stewart

September 24, 2024
As he climbs the greasy pole He fears for losing his soul It all ends in tears Betrayed by his peers Now Rory reflects on his role Think that’s my first limerick executive summary – hope you like it. I was a bit late to Politics on the Edge (my copy came via the local Oxfam shop), but was hooked
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Featured image for “Vetoing humanity: How a few powerful nations hijacked global peace”

Vetoing humanity: How a few powerful nations hijacked global peace

September 20, 2024
Marc J. Cohen, Amy Croome and Elise Nalbandian introduce a new Oxfam report that sets out how the veto power of a few countries at the UN Security Council has been catastrophic for humanity. Ahead of next week’s landmark Summit of the Future, they demand four changes to reform a UN system that is simply no longer up to the challenge of maintaining international peace and security.
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Featured image for “How Change Happens: Masood Ul Mulk on what he has learned from 30 years of working on micro hydro in rural Pakistan.”

How Change Happens: Masood Ul Mulk on what he has learned from 30 years of working on micro hydro in rural Pakistan.

September 17, 2024
FP2P’s Duncan Green writes: Although we have never met, I love my correspondence with Masood Ul Mulk, who works to achieve change in some of the remotest regions of Pakistan, and thinks deeply about the process. Some of his wonderful anecdotes have ended up (with due credit) in my books. He recently sent me a 7000-word ‘long read’ reflection on
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Featured image for “Big Moments in History – how should Change Makers respond?”

Big Moments in History – how should Change Makers respond?

September 11, 2024
FCDO governance guru/wonk (gonk?) Ben Powis reflects on some of the whiplash moments he’s experienced in multiple countries. Moments in history come in many forms – and I have seen a few. The 2015 earthquake in Nepal, the 2021 coup in Myanmar, a new government in Zambia in 2021, and the COVID-19 pandemic, well…everywhere. Bangladesh is experiencing one such moment
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Are killer facts ‘a strategy that can come back to bite’?

September 10, 2024
Guest post by Mike Lewis One of this blog’s foundational themes is that economic facts don’t mean much without an analysis of power. At the same time, over the last fifteen years I’ve watched big NGOs develop specific ways to wield economic facts, perhaps even to fetishise them, as a way of influencing power. With the new government favouring a
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Featured image for “When inclusion is an illusion: sign language interpreters and the pitfalls for ‘inclusive’ development”

When inclusion is an illusion: sign language interpreters and the pitfalls for ‘inclusive’ development

September 6, 2024
How did a meeting for disabled people in Uganda end up using sign language that local deaf people couldn’t understand? Julia Modern reflects on how that failure is rooted in racialised ideas about who is an expert – and shares six tips for effective deaf inclusion. (And you can also watch a Ugandan Sign Language translation of the blog)
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Featured image for “Book Review: Power to the People: Use Your Voice, Change the World, by Danny Sriskandarajah”

Book Review: Power to the People: Use Your Voice, Change the World, by Danny Sriskandarajah

September 4, 2024
Health Warning: Danny Sriskandarajah is both a friend, and my former boss at Oxfam GB, and this blog is hosted by Oxfam, so everything you’re about to read is horribly compromised. Still reading? OK then, here goes. The title pretty much tells you what’s inside. Power to the People is a big picture, determinedly optimistic call to arms that argues
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