Next up from some of the best student posts from my LSE activism course is this piece by Mirna Medina-Silva Whenever I read about sea turtles, my mind hears “duuude!” … you know from Finding Nemo? Unfortunately, unlike Nemo, turtles may soon be lost forever to Nicaragua. In 2019, for the first time, you couldn’t find Leatherback turtles in Nicaragua.

And below is the graphic I promised

‘Thinking and Working Politically in Development’, by John Sidel and Jaime Faustino, is a new book on one of my favourite ‘Thinking and Working Politically’ programmes – Coalitions for Change (CfC) in the Philippines. It’s not the most user-friendly (no exec sum, no index), but at least it’s open access – download here. I’ve written about CfC on the blog

I thought I’d post some of the top blog posts from this year’s students in my LSE class on ‘Advocacy, Campaigning and Grassroots activism‘. Their individual assignment was to design a campaign strategy for a cause close to their hearts, and write a blog about it. Here’s Lucy Shearer presenting her campaign to clean up London’s underground. If like me,

Another great piece/links round-up from Graham Teskey – an internal briefing at his workplace (Abt) that he’s happy for me to share  Political economy analysis (PEA) refers to a body of theory and practice that was first identified by the great economists of the 18th and 19th centuries. Indeed, economics was originally termed ‘political economy’. It was only when mathematics

Guest post by Oliver Pearce In early 2016, I joined Oxfam GB to lead its tax work. As I now prepare to leave Oxfam, a lot has changed in the world of tax (and the wider world too!). Early 2016 was before the Brexit referendum, the Trump presidency, England’s men joining the women’s team by winning the cricket world cup,

Data, Knowledge, Wisdom and other stuff. ht Peter Baker ‘Research in conflict settings is like living with a constant risk of getting burned. As researchers, we grow accustomed to the burns; we even begin to trivialise them. Until the day we realise that our skin no longer heals.’ An Ansoms on the LSE Africa blog What Have We Learned from

Guest post by Jon Harle Many of the inequities which COVID-19 has exposed – and exacerbated – have been with us for a long time.  Setting aside very stark disparities in access to health services, and the ability to maintain decent livelihoods, COVID has shown us once again the processes of exclusion that are baked into the ways in which

On the off chance that someone is looking for an interesting research topic, here are 3 case studies related to norm change that I would love to read about, but don’t currently have time to research myself. If you are interested in picking up any of them, I’d love to discuss (and read the result). 1. The canonization of Oscar

Suchi Pande is a scholar in residence at the Accountability Research Center, Washington DC This post discusses two development policies that sound technical, but which are really important. Social protection is the set of services that help protect people against economic shocks or disasters, and from the ups-and-downs all people face in their life-cycle. Social audits are organized by citizens

Guest post by Ed Laws and Pablo Yanguas The merger of DFID and the FCO into a new Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) has sent shockwaves through the UK-centred development community, with NGOs and MPs publicly decrying the decision, current and former DFID staff expressing concern and dismay in private and in public, and a generalised sense that, at

Pickings are a bit thin this week, but that’s probs because so many people are pretending to be on holiday. Including me – Scottish rain and cuisine, what’s not to like? Back in two weeks. Thankyou Darren Dutton for the inspired conflation of Donald Trump’s Axios interview (the one with the charts) and the Monty Python parrot sketch. What’s changed?