Been on the road, so here’s two weeks’ worth of top links. Plus final reminder: this Thursday (10th December) is the deadline for comments on the book draft – you know what to do. Zen Carpark (right) The difference between US and UK, summed up in one 8 second video Why is Einstein famous when no-one can understand relativity? Cinderella Issues

Dani Rodrik has always played an intriguing role in the endless skirmishes over the economics of development. His has been a delicate balancing act, critiquing the excesses of market fundamentalism from the inside, while avoiding the more abrasive tone of out-and-out critics such as Joe Stiglitz or Ha-Joon Chang. He does sorrow; they prefer anger. His work has been hugely

Tim Wainwright, CEO of ADD International (& also chair of BOND), finds much to celebrate today Four years ago I wrote a blog, expressing my concern about how I felt that mainstream development was largely overlooking a large and highly excluded group: persons with disabilities. [Quick note on terminology: we use the term ‘persons with disabilities’ to reflect the UNCRPD terminology,

Giorgos Kallis responds to yesterday’s post on degrowth by Kate Raworth, plus you get a chance to vote My friend Kate Raworth ‘cannot bring herself to use the word’ degrowth. Here are nine reasons why I use it. 1. Clear definition. ‘Degrowth’ is as clear as it gets. Definitely no less clear than ‘equality’; or ‘economic growth’ for that matter (is

My much-missed Exfam colleague Kate Raworth, now writing the book of her brilliant ‘Doughnut Economics’ paper and blog, returns to discuss degrowth. Tomorrow, Giorgos Kallis, the world’s leading academic on degrowth, responds. Here’s what troubles me about degrowth: I just can’t bring myself to use the word. Don’t get me wrong: I think the degrowth movement is addressing the most profound economic questions

When British Prime Minister Harold MacMillan was asked what he most feared in politics, he replied ‘Events, dear boy. Events’. The official sherpas and their political masters preparing for the global climate change talks in Paris, which start today, must be feeling much the same way, their already complicated task further beset by concerns over security, following the appalling attacks

Ben Ramalingam, newly appointed leader of the Digital and Technology cluster at IDS, and author of Aid on the Edge of Chaos, shares some thoughts on ‘adaptive management’. Over the next few weeks, Duncan has agreed to run a series of posts by participants in the recent USAID-IDS workshop on adaptive management, to share their ideas, insights and suggestions. As co-designer

Spent an afternoon recently discussing the lessons of UK history with an eclectic mix of historians and modern day campaigners. Organized by Friends of the Earth’s Big Ideas project and the History and Policy network, it was the second instalment in a really interesting process (see here for my post on an earlier session). This time around, H&P had commissioned

Tracy Carty, Oxfam Climate Change Policy Adviser, with an excerpt from its Paris media briefing, published today The last time leaders got together to agree a global climate deal it ended in multilateral meltdown.  Copenhagen was widely condemned as a failure – a failure that still haunts the climate negotiations, and one that governments meeting in Paris next week will

Reminder – if you are one of the truly alarming number of people who have downloaded the 160 page draft of How Change Happens, the deadline for comments is just two weeks away – 10th December. Background to the book here. One of the main messages already emerging from feedback is that I need to ‘throw readers a bone’ in

Spending the next two weeks in Australia (Melbourne and Canberra) and Vanuatu consulting on the book draft and scavenging some last minute new material. Speaking in Melbourne at launch of Politics of Results book on Tuesday. Details here. Otherwise it’s all non-public events at ANU, DFAT etc. Also means I’m glad to see this Economist graph on how much safer

The people have spoken, and we have winners for both the best and worst aid fundraising videos of 2015. Let’s start with the crap ones, cos that’s more interesting. The audience voted (predictably) for the Band Aid retread, but I thought this one from the One World Campaign was magnificently terrible (and almost unwatchable). As for the best video, the