Since early 2009, Oxfam has been researching the impact of the global economic crisis on 
poverty and poor communities, and the way governments and others have responded.
With co-authors Richard King and May Miller Dawkins, I’ve now pulled together focus group discussions and in depth interviews with 2,500 people, 11 country case studies and regional overviews into a draft research paper, The Global Economic Crisis and Developing Countries: Impact and Response.
The paper was published in draft on 27 January, and we have allowed a month (ending 26 February) to get comments and feedback from as wide a group as possible both inside Oxfam and beyond.
After a research workshop back in November, I summarized the initial findings here. They haven’t changed much since then.
What do we want from you? Send the link to anyone you know who is working on the issue, and send us:
· Corrections of fact
· Differences of interpretation of the nature and/or severity of the impact and the effectiveness of responses by governments and others
· References for other sources of analysis, especially on countries not covered in the text – one of the more surprising aspects of the work was finding how little research has gone on into this subject
I’ve got no idea whether this is going to work – releasing a draft for consultation is something of a new departure for us, but we are keen to stimulate as wide a discussion as possible. For that reason we are asking people to do two things
– If you want to send comments in private, email them to research@oxfam.org.au
– If you’re happy for them to be public, post them on this blog.
Be as rude as you like – except when absolutely necessary, we will restrain our urge to contact the libel lawyers……..
Over to you
And for the full collection of research papers, links etc, visit Oxfam’s economic crisis website.