Featured image for “No logframe, no indicators and no workplan: what can we learn from a malnutrition project that is truly community-led?”

No logframe, no indicators and no workplan: what can we learn from a malnutrition project that is truly community-led?

April 25, 2025
What happens when you support communities unconditionally to act as they see fit to tackle malnutrition? You get initiatives that seem, on the face of it, a long way from typical malnutrition interventions, whether that’s making soap, refurbishing a health centre or starting a poultry farm. Stephanie Buell of Action Contre la Faim on the “Boolo Xeex Xibon” project in Senegal – and how it actually put the community at the centre of the fight against malnutrition.
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Featured image for “Land is at the heart of women’s rights in the Global South: so why no mention of it in this year’s UN political declaration?”

Land is at the heart of women’s rights in the Global South: so why no mention of it in this year’s UN political declaration?

April 10, 2025
While the landmark Beijing declaration 30 years ago on women’s rights mentioned land rights 30 times, this year’s UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) declaration fails to mention them at all. Naomi Shadrack explains why we need to put land firmly back on the global feminist agenda.
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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 “Top Student blogs: There’s a chicken in the desert!”

Top Student blogs: There’s a chicken in the desert!

August 15, 2023
I’m posting some of the best work from this year’s LSE activism students this week. Here’s Jessica Louise (jessalou1998@gmail.com if you want to see her full campaign strategy and/or offer her a job) introducing her campaign. As an active campaigner for Trussell Trust, one of the UK’s leading charities supporting food banks throughout the nation, I am constantly amazed by
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Featured image for “Do Southern-based Transnationals behave worse than Northern ones?”

Do Southern-based Transnationals behave worse than Northern ones?

August 9, 2023
I’m a big fan of league tables for comparing performance by powerful players, whether governments, NGOs or corporates. If done well, they can prompt a race to the top, with players competing to move up the table in successive years. The latest one of these to cross my timeline was the 2023 Food and Beverage Benchmark Report, produced by ‘KnowTheChain’,
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Featured image for “School children are bearing the brunt of the global hunger crisis – just feed them.”

School children are bearing the brunt of the global hunger crisis – just feed them.

July 24, 2023
Kevin Watkins introduces a new paper on a crucial topic Governments will this week gather in Rome for a UN event with one of those titles designed to induce profound boredom. The FAO is marking the second anniversary of the 2021 World Food System Summit with a ‘Stocktaking Moment’. Yes, I know, those two words feel like a good enough
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Featured image for “Podcast + transcript: did we get it wrong on land grabs in Africa? In Conversation with Laura German”

Podcast + transcript: did we get it wrong on land grabs in Africa? In Conversation with Laura German

May 18, 2023
Laura German is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Georgia, and author of Power/Knowledge/Land: Contested Ontologies of Land and its Governance in Africa (University of Michigan Press) Duncan: I’m really pleased about this conversation because I’m way out of date on this topic. This is about land ownership and what we used to call land grabs. I last worked
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Featured image for “Food and energy protests signal failures of accountability on a global scale”

Food and energy protests signal failures of accountability on a global scale

April 20, 2023
Guest post by Jeff Hallock and Naomi Hossain While the world was watching the war in Ukraine, its side-effects via rising food and energy prices were also playing out in the form of mass protests about the cost-of-living crisis in 148 countries. This global wave, unprecedented in world history, tells us that not only is the global economy in bad
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Featured image for “Venture Philanthropy and Asset Based Community-Driven Development – a marriage made in heaven?”

Venture Philanthropy and Asset Based Community-Driven Development – a marriage made in heaven?

April 18, 2023
Guest post by David Martin and Yogesh Ghore What can you achieve with C$30m and none of the usual constraints faced by official donors and NGOs? That’s the challenge for so called ‘venture philanthropists’ like us. The Comart Foundation is a mid-sized, family-run, Canadian charitable foundation, with an endowment of C$30 million and no permanent staff.  From our inception in
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Featured image for “Remembering Robin Palmer, a giant in defence of land rights in Africa and beyond”

Remembering Robin Palmer, a giant in defence of land rights in Africa and beyond

March 16, 2023
A tribute by Craig Castro Robin Palmer, Oxfam GB (OGB)’s former global land advisor, passed away on Sunday 19 February 2023. He was a wonderful friend and colleague from whom I personally learned so much about land and property rights in Africa. As a regional advisor for OGB in southern Africa, I worked closely with Robin in organizing a landmark
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Featured image for “The links between war and hunger”

The links between war and hunger

November 17, 2022
Powerful piece in the Economist earlier this month stressing a link that is sometimes lost in the coverage of hunger crises – the link to ‘men with guns’ as they put it. Some excerpts: ‘At first glance, Vladimir Putin has little in common with an Ethiopian foot-soldier. One man has palaces and nuclear weapons, the other a shack and an
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Featured image for “Africa is so rich in farmland – so why is it still hungry?”

Africa is so rich in farmland – so why is it still hungry?

July 13, 2022
Guest post from Oxfam’s Anthony Kamande and Dailes Judge, ahead of this week’s African Union meeting It’s been more than two months since it rained in Nakuru County, Kenya, and Jane’s bean crop is long gone. Her only hope on her small plot of 0.8 hectares is the maize crop – but it will also be gone if it doesn’t
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