Oxfam’s annual ‘Davos Report’ has become a bit of an institution. On the eve of this year’s megarich schmoozathon, Anthony Kamande introduces the main findings of the 2024 version. Full paper here. Last Christmas eve, my cousin Lucy came to my rural village. She needed some help. Lucy’s son had excelled in the national exams and was selected to join

For this podcast, I sat down a few months ago to discuss data and development with Claire Melamed, who runs the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data. Apologies for delay, Claire – got caught up in internal traffic. Also apologies for length of this transcript – turns out 30m talking = 2 blog length pieces. Duncan: Like any good Englishman,

The title is a line from Rebecca Solnit’s ‘Hope in the Dark’, which I read over Christmas as an antidote to the grimness of the daily news. It’s a beautifully written collection of her essays and, at 140 pages, mercifully short. In the afterword, Solnit explains: ‘This book was written for the encouragement of activists who share some of my

Irwin Loy and Will Worley have an excellent 2024 curtain raiser on The New Humanitarian, which is now by some distance my favourite aid blog. It’s a bit long by FP2P standards, so I’ve cut it down a bit: Money: Learning to do less with less  In 2023, humanitarians took a look in the mirror and admitted what everyone already knew: They don’t have

Looking back on 2023: Oxfam’s top policy reads from 2023 Not good – global progress stalled in 2012: Some Christmas geek humour: I am a morning person, which really annoys the family, especially when hangovers are involved. Another case for the Oxford comma: The weirdness that is the the UK New Year’s Honour List, given the Marsh Family treatment And