Featured image for “The world looks set to miss its 2025 targets on nutrition: how should the Paris summit respond?”

The world looks set to miss its 2025 targets on nutrition: how should the Paris summit respond?

February 28, 2025
Each Olympic/Paralympic games is now followed by a major global nutrition summit in the host city. Sunit Bagree of Results UK sets out what campaigners will be looking for this time, including billions in extra funding, giving grants not loans and supporting the most cost-effective interventions.
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Featured image for “Aid is often given for all the wrong reasons: but Trump’s aid cuts won’t solve the problem.”

Aid is often given for all the wrong reasons: but Trump’s aid cuts won’t solve the problem.

February 13, 2025
If you want to be rid of aid that advances US interests, don’t celebrate now: that aid isn’t going anywhere, says Terence Wood.
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Two lessons from Trump’s attack on Aid

February 4, 2025
Whatever finally emerges from the Trump Administration’s assault on USAID (and other governments such as Switzerland jumping on the bandwagon), surely the status quo ante is unlikely to return. What to do? Yes we can keep making the case for aid, hoping that the political tide will turn, but the political consensus around aid had been under assault since long
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Where is UK development policy headed under the new government?

November 18, 2024
The recent £1.5 billion cut in the aid budget heralds an era of “less money, more policy”, with any return to spending 0.7% of GDP a long way away, says Andy Sumner of King’s College London. As we await three reviews of development policy, early signs suggest climate change and diplomatic interests will drive priorities – and there is little chance DFID will be reborn.
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A question from Lebanon to international humanitarians…

November 1, 2024
As organisations race to respond to the unfolding crisis in Lebanon, Nadine Saba – representing hundreds of Lebanese and Global South NGOs – spoke at the recent Grand Bargain humanitarian gathering in Geneva. Here, we share an edited transcript of her powerful address…
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Talking to aid economists about localization

October 16, 2024
Sat on a panel on localization last week in a meeting of aid economists (no more detail, sorry – Chatham House Rule). It was definitely a different tone to the usual conversation on localization, which concentrates on issues of power, equity, decolonization etc. Here, there was a striking focus on efficiency/value for money, which is of course what floats economists’
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Book Review: Politics on the Edge, by Rory Stewart

September 24, 2024
As he climbs the greasy pole He fears for losing his soul It all ends in tears Betrayed by his peers Now Rory reflects on his role Think that’s my first limerick executive summary – hope you like it. I was a bit late to Politics on the Edge (my copy came via the local Oxfam shop), but was hooked
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Big Moments in History – how should Change Makers respond?

September 11, 2024
FCDO governance guru/wonk (gonk?) Ben Powis reflects on some of the whiplash moments he’s experienced in multiple countries. Moments in history come in many forms – and I have seen a few. The 2015 earthquake in Nepal, the 2021 coup in Myanmar, a new government in Zambia in 2021, and the COVID-19 pandemic, well…everywhere. Bangladesh is experiencing one such moment
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Are killer facts ‘a strategy that can come back to bite’?

September 10, 2024
Guest post by Mike Lewis One of this blog’s foundational themes is that economic facts don’t mean much without an analysis of power. At the same time, over the last fifteen years I’ve watched big NGOs develop specific ways to wield economic facts, perhaps even to fetishise them, as a way of influencing power. With the new government favouring a
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Featured image for “Book Review: Power to the People: Use Your Voice, Change the World, by Danny Sriskandarajah”

Book Review: Power to the People: Use Your Voice, Change the World, by Danny Sriskandarajah

September 4, 2024
Health Warning: Danny Sriskandarajah is both a friend, and my former boss at Oxfam GB, and this blog is hosted by Oxfam, so everything you’re about to read is horribly compromised. Still reading? OK then, here goes. The title pretty much tells you what’s inside. Power to the People is a big picture, determinedly optimistic call to arms that argues
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How is Scotland doing Aid and Development?

August 20, 2024
Ducked out of my annual pilgrimage to the Edinburgh Fringe recently (highly recommended, as ever – highlight was being invited up on stage and asked to impersonate a Norwegian comedian’s cervix. Not something I’ll forget in a hurry….) to spend an hour or two with the Scottish Government development team. Really interesting. In some ways, the SG is prototyping post-$
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Featured image for “Four Insights from Senior Aid Leaders on how to Influence the Wider System”

Four Insights from Senior Aid Leaders on how to Influence the Wider System

July 26, 2024
The GELI webinars I’ve been hosting with senior leaders in the aid sector have come to an end for the moment, and I’m going to really miss them. Sitting in on a bunch of frontline bosses exchanging top tips on influencing is a real privilege (see my previous post on ‘How do you Influence the State when Leaders change every
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