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Regular readers will know I’m a big fan of diaries as a research tool into issues such as governance and finance. Here Sandrine N’simire, Ishara Tchumisi and Patricia Stys, of LSE’s Centre for Public Authority in International Development, discuss their experiences conducting research using ‘financial diaries’ as part of LSE’s Water Governance project in Goma, DRC. This blog forms part of the Idjwi

Teniola Tayo argues that African cooperation is gaining momentum, but big challenges lie ahead. This post was first published on the ISS blog The start of trading under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement on 1 January 2021 marks the dawn of a new era in Africa’s development journey. Over time, the AfCFTA will eliminate import tariffs on

Crises act as tipping points. Local crises and conflicts can galvanize a social movement or discredit a leader in a given location. Global crises change far more than that – the 2008 financial crisis has been credited with everything from sparking the rise of right-wing populism (hopefully now heading for a historical dustbin near you) to transforming norms around inequality

Asier Hernando Malax-Echevarria discusses what looks like an important advocacy win The Argentine Senate has just passed the ‘Solidarity and Extraordinary Contribution of Great Fortunes’ law, a one-off tax intended to help cover the costs of the COVID19 pandemic in a country where it has so far killed 40,000 people. The tax will pay for medical supplies, assist small and

A recent piece in the Economist on Mexico’s debates is an interesting addition to my library of ‘how change happens’ case studies, and reminded me of conversations I had thirty years ago, when legalization seemed a purely theoretical possibility. Would legalization mean small farmers get a new and stable market for their crop, free from the violence and chaos associated

Imagine you’ve written a mini-book (82 pages) setting out your thoughts on a progressive agenda, scheduled to come out in the first days of a Biden Administration. What could possibly go wrong? I can only imagine what my friend and political sparring partner Paul O’Brien was going through in the early hours of 4th November, as a second Trump term

Oxfam has just published an interesting overview of its work on unpaid care and domestic work (UCDW) in over 25 countries since 2013, which I recommend as a good intro to an increasingly important topic in the aid and development biz. Firstly, the history: ‘Conversations on UCDW have evolved over the decades from the ‘domestic labour debate’ of the 1970s—then

This repost from last year is a blatant promotional puff for tomorrow’s conversation with Branko Milanovic on his latest book, Capitalism Alone. You can watch it on YouTube here (Friday 13th, 4-6pm GMT). We’ll be on as part of the LSE’s ‘Cutting Edge Issues in Development Thinking and Practice’ lecture series, which has moved to a whole other level since

Guest post by Katherine Marshall, who will be one of the panelists at tomorrow’s webinar on ‘Emergent Agency in a time of Covid 19’ (register here) Religious actors and transparency/accountability advocates ought to be natural allies, but all too often, they barely communicate, much less work actively together. That is a huge missed opportunity for both sides. In the many

The wheels of academia grind slowly, but eventually grind out some fascinating stuff. Five years ago, I was involved in a series of conversations about the need for research on the history of redistribution in developing countries. What can we learn from low/middle income countries that have actually managed to reduce inequality (a bit like Ha-Joon Chang’s work on trade

I’ve been catching up with my reading this week, and really enjoyed this essay (from May – sorry for the delay!). Bregman (a Dutch historian who became an overnight global sensation with this fine outburston taxes at Davos) is brilliant on the role of ideas in driving paradigm shifts. He uses my favourite quote from Milton Friedman ‘“Only a crisis