Next up in my series of interviews on the real-world influence of researchers at the LSE Centre for Public Authority and International Development, I explore the impact of Ryan O’Byrne and Charles Ogeno’s work on how South Sudanese refugees in Uganda understand and interact with refugee camp authorities, and how they engage with those authorities when they need help or encounter

Branko Milanovic is writing some lovely stuff at the moment: Marx in Amerika: musing about whether Marxism is relevant to today’s very different brand of US capitalism Can you have a boring life and be a first-rate social scientist? (He doubts it, which could be bad news for the economics profession…) Every day brings a new headline on the UK’s

Guest post by Oliver Scanlan ‘Two donor agencies, alike in dignity, in fair Bangladesh, where we lay our scene, from ancient grudge break to new mutiny, where civil blood makes civil hands unclean‘. [With Apologies to William Shakespeare/Romeo and Juliet] “You’re not doing it right,” has been the mantra of development academics when diagnosing the failure of foreign aid programmes

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In my third post on the impact of researchers at the LSE Centre for Public Authority and International Development, I talk to CPAID’s Melissa Parker about her ground-breaking work on Sierra Leone’s Ebola outbreak and how it helped her bring the ‘public authority’ lens into policy-making. When you send in the anthropologists, be ready for surprises – totally new players,

Guest post by Kristina Zittel & Scott Guggenheim Earth observation (EO) with drone and satellite-based remote sensing enables the monitoring and assessment of the ever-changing natural and man-made environment in which we live. The most innovative community programs are already noting the potential of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, to enhance data collection, mapping, monitoring, and advocacy in remote

Campaigning and the Church. Excellent reflection from ‘thoughtful campaigner’ Tom Baker (what does that make the other ones, I wonder?) Turning Covid guilt into action: ‘Right now, every single place approaching normality is guilty of a massive moral failure‘. This rang painfully true ht Ranil Dissanayake “What we’re calling on the government to do is to ease the intellectual property

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Bens Ramalingam and Kumpf have a thought-provoking new paper out on Covid-linked innovation in poor countries, and the lessons for aid donors. Here are some highlights, and a minor rant it inspired in me. The paper documents a range of fascinating innovations. Here’s a flavour: ‘Problem: A health official in a large city in India is tasked with sourcing quality

Before you start on this post, a glitch in the matrix meant that yesterday’s post, on Covid-related innovation in poor countries, didn’t trigger the usual email notification. Catch up here. In my second post on the impact of researchers at the LSE Centre for Public Authority and International Development, I talk to CPAID’s Anna Macdonald and Kara Blackmore. In their

I’ve been chatting to a few people about their efforts to change how their organizations think, work and behave. By ‘people’ I mean the foot soldiers, not the bosses – there’s a huge amount written for managers about how to change their organizations, but what if you’re not a boss? For a subject that is so important to a lot

We said goodbye to Oxfam legend Richard English last week. Self-effacing, kind and invariably positive, he trained, mentored and supported generations of Oxfam campaigners all over the world. He also summarized it all in a great guide to designing effective campaigns, which deserves a wide readership. The World Wide Web was born 28 years ago (April 1993). It begin as