![Featured image for “GELI Stories – Seizing a Chance Meeting with Iran’s President to Unblock Food Shipments”](https://frompoverty.oxfam.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/wfp-logo-vertical-blue-en.png)
February 13, 2024
One of the best things about the course I give on ‘Influencing for Senior Leaders: Analysis, Strategy, and Practice’ is the anecdotes from the participants, who are working in the most difficult of circumstances and often achieve amazing results. So recently I started recording some of them to come up with a series of ‘GELI Stories’ (GELI is the name
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![Featured image for “The Rise of ‘Trust-Based Philanthropy’ – aka Unconditional Cash Transfers to NGOs”](https://frompoverty.oxfam.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/philanthropy-fig-1.png)
The Rise of ‘Trust-Based Philanthropy’ – aka Unconditional Cash Transfers to NGOs
January 18, 2024
Last week’s Economist had a really useful Special Report by Avantika Chilkoti on the evolving world of philanthropy. It highlighted the rise of what it calls ‘no strings giving’ or ‘trust-based philanthropy’, in which some v big donors have essentially adopted an institutional cash transfer approach: if organizations are doing good work, just sign the cheque and leave them to
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![Featured image for “Claire Melamed on Data, Power and Sustainable Development”](https://frompoverty.oxfam.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Melamed-logo.png)
Claire Melamed on Data, Power and Sustainable Development
January 10, 2024
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,
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![Featured image for “Six big humanitarian policy trends for 2024”](https://frompoverty.oxfam.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/aid-trends-graphic.png)
Six big humanitarian policy trends for 2024
January 4, 2024
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
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![Featured image for “Mia Mottley on Slavery, Poverty, George Floyd, Climate and the Future of the World”](https://frompoverty.oxfam.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Mia-Mottley-at-LSE.png)
Mia Mottley on Slavery, Poverty, George Floyd, Climate and the Future of the World
December 14, 2023
I was lucky enough to attend the Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley’s extraordinary speech at LSE last week (Video here or audio file here). Props to outgoing Oxfam CEO Danny Sriskandarajah and whoever else from Oxfam was involved in pulling it together, along with the LSE’s International Inequalities Institute, who hosted. It was jaw-dropping for both the performance, interweaving
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![Featured image for “What’s it like Explaining NGOs to Senior Military types from 40 Countries?”](https://frompoverty.oxfam.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/civmil-banner-pic.jpg)
What’s it like Explaining NGOs to Senior Military types from 40 Countries?
November 30, 2023
Got a grilling from an unusual audience (for me) last week. 100+ senior military officers (colonels and above) from 40 countries, attending what amounts to a UK-sponsored ‘military Masters’ (my words) – a year-long course on strategy for future leaders. Can’t be more specific as it was Chatham House rule. My task was to introduce them to the wonderful world
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UN Women makes Norm Change central to its mission
November 28, 2023
Bafflingly, I was recently invited to an online ‘Expert Group Meeting’ to help UN Women flesh out a really important new strategy – making norm change central to its role. This from the Concept Note for the session: ‘In recognition of the emerging emphasis on an articulated approach to social norms in international development and acknowledging that discriminatory social norms
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![Featured image for “What can we learn from looking at the overlaps between innovations in ways of doing research and neglected development issues?”](https://frompoverty.oxfam.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/4-blobs.png)
What can we learn from looking at the overlaps between innovations in ways of doing research and neglected development issues?
November 23, 2023
The same subjects have been coming up again and again in random conversations recently, especially the ones where someone comes down to South London for a general chat in a local coffee shop (one of my favourite ways of avoiding work). In a recent discussion with Oxfam Mexico’s Estefanie Hechenberger, a small penny dropped – the value of looking at
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![Featured image for “What to read on the new UK White Paper on International Development?”](https://frompoverty.oxfam.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/White-paper-cover.png)
What to read on the new UK White Paper on International Development?
November 21, 2023
When I joined Oxfam in the mid-noughties, it was a time of Big Documents: The World Development Report, The Human Development Report etc etc. At regular intervals, the latest tome would thud onto my desk and require study, debate, lots of panels and press commentary. The tomes combined in-depth research and narrative – lots of narrative – about the nature
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![Featured image for “Voices of Gaza: ‘They destroyed the smell of Jasmine, the memories, the love’”](https://frompoverty.oxfam.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/indescribable.png)
Voices of Gaza: ‘They destroyed the smell of Jasmine, the memories, the love’
November 15, 2023
Oxfam has been receiving increasingly desperate voicenotes from staff and partners inside the Gaza strip. Here are some edited transcripts and links to give you a sense of the suffering that is unfolding: The Oxfam Partner Eman Shanan founded Aid and Hope in 2009, to support women with cancer in Gaza. Oxfam has been funding Aid and Hope through its
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![Featured image for “Why a “humanitarian pause” or “humanitarian corridors” are simply not the answer in Gaza”](https://frompoverty.oxfam.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/ceasefire-now.jpg)
Why a “humanitarian pause” or “humanitarian corridors” are simply not the answer in Gaza
November 6, 2023
This post by Oxfam’s Richard Stanforth and Magnus Corfixen went up on Oxfam’s Views and Voices blog on Friday Why are Oxfam and other humanitarian organisations not welcoming calls for corridors, pauses and so-called “safe zones” to address the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza? Richard Stanforth and Magnus Corfixen explain – and set out why a ceasefire is the only credible
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![Featured image for “What would make an Atheist spend a day discussing Faith and Development?”](https://frompoverty.oxfam.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/FaithDevelopment.jpg)
What would make an Atheist spend a day discussing Faith and Development?
October 19, 2023
Had a good chat last week about one of my enduring hobby-horses: the role of faith in development, and the aid sector’s massive secular blind spot. The conversation was with Christian Aid’s Lila Caballero Sosa, who (with Islamic Relief, the Joint Learning Initiative and the University of Leeds) is putting together a big event on faith and development for next
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