Alex Evans of Global Dashboard is always interesting on risk and global institutions. His latest paper, with Bruce Jones and David Steven takes such a long view that it feels pretty cosmic. But here’s my attempt at a summary/highlights of ‘Confronting the Long Crisis of Globalization: Risk, Resilience and international Order’ (far too many syllables for a haiku). We live

Since early 2009, Oxfam has been researching the impact of the global economic crisis on poverty and poor communities, and the way governments and others have responded. With co-authors Richard King and May Miller Dawkins, I’ve now pulled together focus group discussions and in depth interviews with 2,500 people, 11 country case studies and regional overviews into a draft research

The momentum behind the Financial Transactions Tax (a tiny levy of 0.005% on all financial trades would raise about $30bn a year for climate change, development and/or filling fiscal holes) continues to grow since my last post (Why has the Tobin Tax gone mainstream?). The French government, which as far back as 2003 was the first to seriously propose the

‘We are confronted with two alternatives: to be a demagogue or to be a realist. If, based on the law of supply and demand, I say that there is a greater demand in the world for bread than for plastic surgery; and much more for the treatment of malaria than for apparel of haute couture; or if I propose a

The Bank’s Independent Evaluation Group – an internal watchdog with a good track record in spotting problems, has just published an evaluation of the World Bank Group (WBG)’s response to the crisis. Nothing earth-shattering, but here are some highlights: ‘The greatest part of the Bank’s response in fiscal 2009 was a large increase in IBRD lending, which was unprecedented relative

A new report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington DC tries to work out whether the IMF has really changed its thinking in response to the global economic crisis and the general perception that countercyclical responses (rather than belt-tightening austerity) are the right way to go in a recession. After a (fairly polite) public row with

Last week we (Oxfam International) met to discuss a series of studies on the impact of, and response to, the global economic crisis (GEC). Partly because the discussion took place in Bangkok, the research (and therefore this summary) was very weighted towards East Asia and the Pacific, but here are some initial impressions. From studies in 11 countries, if one

So the Tobin Tax finally went large at the G20 finance ministers’ meeting last weekend. Gordon Brown supported a financial transactions tax to repay some of the costs of the bailout and provide extra cash for development and climate change action, and a predictable backlash promptly consumed the finance pages. I won’t rehearse the press coverage (try Heather Stewart or Larry

I recently gave a two week introduction to development (undergrad level) at the University of Notre Dame, consisting of eight 45 minute lectures – here are the powerpoints for anyone wanting to nick them. Each lecture includes a brief illustrative video clip of campaigns, social movements etc. Subjects covered are: Risk and Vulnerability; The Global Economic Crisis; The International System;

I’m still surrounded by the world’s statisticians (not as bad as it sounds) at the OECD Measuring the Progress of Societies conference in South Korea, where yesterday Joe Stiglitz gave a great presentation. Rather than simply rehearse the findings of his commission’s report to President Sarkozy, he reflected on why criticisms of GDP, which have been around for almost as

I am currently in Korea’s second city, Busan, attending a big OECD conference on ‘statistics, knowledge and policy’, organized by its ‘Measuring the Progress of Societies’ project. The massive conference centre looks out on a consumerist paradise, including a giant Tesco’s supermarket (everything’s big here, giving you that sense of suddenly having shrunk that you get in Tiananmen square) and

Gave a presentation on this last week. I’ve blogged before on the strengths and weaknesses of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), but if you want more,  ‘Promoting Pro-poor Policy after the MDGs’ a recent conference organized by EADI, ActionAid, IDS and others has dozens of background papers (prize for most world-weary title goes to Pietro Garau for ‘The MDGs are modest,