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Imposter Syndrome – doubting your abilities and feeling like a fraud. (Almost) everyone has it, even old lags like me. Just because I’ve become relaxed about banging on in front of an audience, doesn’t mean I’ve stopped living in fear of someone pointing at me and saying ‘you don’t really know what you’re talking about, do you?’ Luckily, the only

Nicola Nixon (right) and Tamara Failor (centre) from The Asia Foundation and Rebecca Calder (left), from Kore Global, introduce some ideas for making cities more inclusive in Southeast Asia. In the shadow of Covid-19, rapid urbanization is exacerbating existing inequalities and creating new ones that dramatically reduce the quality of life of people who are marginalized.  Three examples: Persons with

Oxfam’s Amy Croome reports back on a very different kind of localization discussion What happens when you bring together local activists and organisations to discuss how to reform the humanitarian system? I recently found out, attending a conference, where more than 85% of the speakers and moderators were from national and local organisations (compared to not even 10% at the

Juliet Parker, Director of ALNAP (the Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance in humanitarian action), summarizes its new State of the Humanitarian System report 2022 “I am here to sound the alarm:  The world must wake up.” “We are on the edge of an abyss — and moving in the wrong direction.” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres offered a stark

Got a new image to illustrate (in)effective states….. Timeless tips for any campaigner from Tom Baker. My favourite: ‘Avoid being a missionary or a martyr’. Kenyan pharmaceutical company becomes the first African manufacturer to get prequalification from the World Health Organization for a key antimalarial drug Insights from Applying PDIA (Problem-Driven Iterative Adaptation) in the Education Sector. Excellent post, full

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Guest post from Shruti Patel Emily Oster, an economist, mother of two, and one of TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people, wants parenting to be treated like a profession. How? By getting them to make data-driven decisions about their kids. In her latest book, The Family Firm she translates decades of research on how key decisions (e.g., on after-school care

Guest post from Peter Evans, who has left the UK Government in order to become more irritating (his words – see last para) In December 2021 I left the UK Government after 20 years as a governance adviser, and then research commissioner, and became Director of the U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre in Norway.  After 20 years of being a ‘flexpert’,

Ah the summer reading backlog. A hammock, sunshine (lots of it) and some good books. Top of my reviews list this year was Gambling on Development: Why Some Countries Win and Others Lose, by Stefan Dercon. He summarized his book on this blog back in May, but I wanted to read (and review) it for myself. Dercon is a big

Last but not least in this summer series of posts from my LSE activism class, Jonathan Swinney (full project on which this post is based here) When I think about elephants, my mind wanders off to Dumbo – a fictional elephant loved by millions around the world. In 1941, some people thought we would never see him again. But he

My students have the option to vlog or blog on their project – developing a campaign strategy about something they are passionate about. Here’s Jenna Thoretz’ vlog on her campaign to get people to switch from planes to trains on internal travel in the UK. Full campaign strategy here.