The World Bank just released a monster number crunch on the changing face of aid. ‘A Changing Landscape: Trends in official financial flows and the aid architecture’ covers ‘all private and public sector financing to developing countries’ up to the end of 2019 (aka the eve of the pandemic). Here are the main findings, with my attempts at a commentary

Laure-Hélène Piron and Sam Waldock reflect on some of the unexpected lessons of 20 years of UK-funded (total £276.5m) governance programmes in Nigeria. See the summary report and Duncan’s summary of the summary.  ODI/Learning, Evidence and Advocacy Partnership research found sustainable improvements in some dimensions of governance and service delivery in four Northern Nigerian states. We wanted to push a

Amber Parkes, Anam Parvez Butt, Marion Sharples and Vivian Schwarz-Blum talks us through an important new advocacy tool – the Care Policy Scorecard Everything gets a rating these days: apps, hotels, Uber journeys. And everyone wants that five-star rating. But what about government policies that affect people’s lives? What if we could rate them too, according to how impactful and

My Oxfam colleague and regular FP2P contributor Max Lawson (right) sends out a weekly summary of his reading on inequality (he leads Oxfam’s advocacy work on it). They’re great, and Max has opened his mailing list up to the anyone who’s interested – just email max.lawson@oxfam.org, with ‘subscribe’ in the subject line. Here’s his latest effort (and thanks to Rakesh Rajani for suggesting the

Got a gap on the blog today, so thought I’d repost this excellent piece from CGD, by Mayra Buvinic and Megan O’Donnell The rhetoric around women’s economic empowerment (WEE) in global development is finally being translated into action. Development organizations are using this objective to guide operations and exploring ways to measure impact by integrating WEE indicators into project results frameworks. But

Powerful piece in this week’s Economist. I’ve added links to the various pieces of research it cites ‘Seventeen months into the COVID-19 pandemic, plenty of questions about the catastrophe remain unanswered. It is still unclear how SARS-COV-2 originated, for instance. Another puzzle is why some areas have had less destructive epidemics than others. Why has Florida had fewer deaths per person from

I was speaking on a UN panel on Decent Work last week, so thought I’d better catch up with the latest Oxfam report, Not in This Together, written by Anouk Franck and Art Prapha. It provides a great case study of Covid as an ‘engine of inequality’ (and of how to write a research-based advocacy report – killer facts galore,

WaterAid’s Tseguereda Abraham, Hossain Ishrath Adib and John Garrett introduce its new report. Why invest in water, sanitation and hygiene? Most schoolchildren would need only a few seconds to find an answer. Of course, water and sanitation are human rights, and hygiene has a vital role in preventing infectious disease, as COVID-19 has highlighted all too clearly. So why is

Nikki van der Gaag reflects on the state of dad-dom ahead of fathers’ day on Sunday. She is a co-author of this year’s State of the World’s Fathers report One thing is certain in these uncertain times. Being a father has changed. I have never seen so many dads out with their children as I did when I walked in

  Despite almost 30 years of the global anti-corruption agenda, something is clearly not working. Preparing for this week’s special session of the General Assembly against corruption, the UN has recognized that ‘it has become increasingly clear that measures taken to prevent corruption have been insufficient’. In a new paper for the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, Heather Marquette and Franklin

I love it when a book nails something that’s been lurking at the back of my mind, but never pinned down. The Moral Economy of Elections in Africa, by Nic Cheeseman, Gabrielle Lynch and Justin Willis, does just that. It explores the gulf between how politicians (and not just in Africa) see themselves (motivated by ideas of virtue as well

Charles Kenny is a wonderfully fluent and accessible writer. He’s also quick, judging by his latest book, The Plague Cycle: The Unending War Between Humanity and Infectious Disease. Here’s how it opens: ‘The two leading killers worldwide at the start of the twenty-first century are heart attacks and strokes. That is evidence of humanity’s greatest triumph: until recent decades, most