Along with a bunch of Oxfam’s specialist policy wonks, I recently helped Francoise Vanni, our new Director of Policy and Campaigns, put together a presentation on the multilateral system. Writing a new powerpoint is also a pretty good way to generate a blog post – key messages, simply transmitted (assuming you obey the ‘less than 20 words per slide’ rule,

The Economist has a powerful series of articles on modern slavery this week. Sorry this is too long, but they write so well, I struggled to make cuts. How to reduce bonded labour and human trafficking “The time that I went into the camp and I looked, I was shocked. Where all my expectations and my happiness all got destroyed,

My friend Ha-Joon Chang is Korean, and argues that for a development economist, growing up in South Korea is like being a physicist at the birth of the universe. I was reminded of that when the UK parliament enshrined spending 0.7% of gross national income on aid in national law last week – for an aid wonk, being British means

Finally got round to reading the ‘Adapting Development’ the ODI’s latest 54 page synthesis of the theory and practice underpinning the ‘Doing Development Differently’ approach. It’s very good – a good lit review, laced with lots of case studies and good insights – and definitely worth a careful read. Weirdly the bit that jumped out for me was on results

A secret service version of “Where’s Waldo” in the New York Times front page photo of Obama’s recent visit to Selma [h/t Chris Blattman and Guo Xu (@misologie)] Excellent update on evolving Piketty debates – what he got right/wrong on inequality, how he’s responded to the backlash [h/t Ricardo Fuentes] Queuing innovation in a Thai Post Office. Wouldn’t work in UK –

My former boss Phil Bloomer seems to be having fun in his new role running the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre. Here BHRRC researcher Eniko Horvath profiles 2 new interactive platforms on company virtues/vices and how they can help the struggle for corporate responsibility. In Mexico, the Federal Electricity Commission sued activist Bettina Cruz, for her peaceful advocacy on

As the conflict in Syria enters its fifth year, Oxfam’s Head of Humanitarian Policy and Campaigns, Maya Mailer, reflects on a recent trip to Lebanon and Jordan, where she spoke with Syrian refugees, and asks whether we have become immune to the suffering of Syrians. If you type ‘Syria’ into Google News, the headlines that normally appear are about airstrikes,

This review also went up on the Guardian Development Professionals Network site I recently summarized a New York Times piece on non-violent activism, discussing the ideas of the Serbian protestors who overthrew Slobodan Milosevic, and then went on to train protest movements around the world. I’ve now read the new book by one of the leaders, Srjdja Popovic (right), and it’s

Along with a bunch of policy wonks from NGOs and thinktanks, I had an exchange with World Bank chief economist Kaushik Basu this week. Rules of engagement were that the meeting  was off the record, but I was allowed to blog as long as the Bank saw a draft to make sure I wasn’t about to get him the sack.

Patriotism explained… 12 leading reporters on aid and development – one for your RSS/twitter feed ‘Frequent email checks temporarily lower your intelligence more than being stoned.’ Brilliant tips on how to be (more) efficient 227 studies later, what actually works to improve learning in developing countries? Teacher training, accountability and ‘Pedagogical interventions that match teaching to individual student learning levels’,

It’s International Women’s Day on Sunday, which is swiftly followed by celebrations around the 20th anniversary of the 1995 Beijing conference (I still remember the buzz from women returning from that) and the start of the 59th Commission on the Status of Women at the UN – an annual spotlight on progress (or otherwise) on women’s rights. Gender is a

As regular FP2Pistas should have clocked by now, I am writing a book on ‘How Change Happens’. Should have a final manuscript by later this year, to publish in 2016. But in a desperate courageous attempt to be funky and innovative, we want to do things a bit differently this time: 1. It won’t be that long – aiming for