Imagine you’ve written a mini-book (82 pages) setting out your thoughts on a progressive agenda, scheduled to come out in the first days of a Biden Administration. What could possibly go wrong? I can only imagine what my friend and political sparring partner Paul O’Brien was going through in the early hours of 4th November, as a second Trump term

Covid bookshop ht Sony Kapoor The inequality of climate change. 1% of people cause half of global aviation emissions – new study ht Tim Gore I’m chairing a lecture by Nora Lustig on “Inequality in Latin America: Markets, Covid-19 and Policies” on Friday, 4-6pm UK time. Jean-Paul Faguet is discussant. Livestream here. You can catch up with previous speakers in

Sam Nadel, Oxfam’s Head of Policy and Advocacy, reflects on a bad week for the UK. Cast your mind back to December 2016. Boris Johnson, then UK Foreign Secretary, is speaking at an event at Chatham House, laying out his vision for the UK’s role in the world. Just six months earlier, the UK had voted to leave the European Union.   In

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Oxfam has just published an interesting overview of its work on unpaid care and domestic work (UCDW) in over 25 countries since 2013, which I recommend as a good intro to an increasingly important topic in the aid and development biz. Firstly, the history: ‘Conversations on UCDW have evolved over the decades from the ‘domestic labour debate’ of the 1970s—then

How many friends and relatives can you buy the same book for as a Christmas present, without getting into trouble for your lack of imagination? Difficult Women has everything – a great and funny writer in Helen Lewis, and a fascinating and page-turning introduction to the history of northern, mainly UK, feminism. Here’s the pitch: ‘Women’s history should not be

Spent an intense two hours last week on a webinar discussing the initial findings, hypotheses etc of our Emergent Agency in a Time of Covid project. We had some great panellists (Laurence Cox, Yogesh Ghore, and Katherine Marshall) on social movements, livelihoods and faith organizations, respectively. I cross examined, Irene Guijt chaired, and a good spread of activists and researchers

Larissa Pelham, Oxfam’s Social Protection Adviser, reports back on a 4 day Zoomathon Covid-19 has catapulted social protection into the spotlight.  From furloughing to school feeding programmes delivered to homes, 212 states and territories across the world have planned or delivered 1179 social protection interventions in response to the pandemic.  It is the backbone support to families and individuals to

Early Covid test ‘Brief explainer on how not to communicate when inviting a “diverse” person to come speak at your event/join your club’. Essential reading, especially for event organizers etc from Nani Jansen Reventlow ht Tobias Denskus ‘Life and health in most governments’ COVID ethics are valued as equally necessary whether you are 80 or 20. This is intuitively odd.’

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My colleague at Oxfam America, Paul O’Brien, has a book out on Monday (review to follow) on the agenda for a Biden-Harris administration. He must have been chewing his nails more than most on election night. Since then, we’ve had an interesting exchange on what lessons to draw for the wider progressive movement – broadly, Paul is doing cup half

This repost from last year is a blatant promotional puff for tomorrow’s conversation with Branko Milanovic on his latest book, Capitalism Alone. You can watch it on YouTube here (Friday 13th, 4-6pm GMT). We’ll be on as part of the LSE’s ‘Cutting Edge Issues in Development Thinking and Practice’ lecture series, which has moved to a whole other level since