Featured image for “How did female MPs in Kenya convince colleagues to support anti-FGM laws?”

How did female MPs in Kenya convince colleagues to support anti-FGM laws?

May 17, 2024
This post was first published on the Africa at LSE blog The creation of an anti-female genital mutilation law in Kenya shows how men can become supportive of issues that affect women, writes Regina Mwatha. While it may not always seem like men are supportive of women’s agendas, there are three pertinent things to consider when discussing men’s thinking on
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Featured image for “GELI Stories – Bringing Stakeholders together to tackle Girls’ Education in Benin”

GELI Stories – Bringing Stakeholders together to tackle Girls’ Education in Benin

April 2, 2024
In the latest of this series of podcasts with UN and other aid leaders making change happen on the frontline, I talked to Djanabou Mahonde, from UNICEF in Benin, about the power of ‘convening and brokering’ in tackling girls’ rights. Duncan: With me is Djanabou Mahonde from UNICEF Benin, who’s done some really impressive influencing work on girls’ rights there.
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Featured image for “How the pregnancy penalty supercharges global inequality”

How the pregnancy penalty supercharges global inequality

March 7, 2024
In a blog for International Women’s Day, new parent Anthony Kamande reflects on the heavy cost his partner and family have paid for the simple act of having a baby. In one of the proudest moments of our lives, my wife and I became parents on Valentine’s Day. But for us, as for millions of others having babies across the
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Featured image for “GELI Stories – How to get Early Childhood Development into the SDGs (with a bit of help from Shakira)”

GELI Stories – How to get Early Childhood Development into the SDGs (with a bit of help from Shakira)

March 6, 2024
In the fourth of this series of podcasts with UN and other aid leaders making change happen on the frontline, I talked to UNICEF’s Pia Britto about how she and a group of colleagues managed to include Early Childhood Development in the SDGs.  Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa · GELI Stories – Pia Brito on getting Early Childhood Development into
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Featured image for “GELI Stories – Building Coalitions between UN Agencies and Government Ministries in Eswatini”

GELI Stories – Building Coalitions between UN Agencies and Government Ministries in Eswatini

February 20, 2024
In the second of this series of podcasts with UN and other aid leaders making change happen on the frontline, I talked to Cissy Kabasuuga of WFP about how she managed to unblock a school feeding programme in Eswatini. Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa · GELI Stories-Cissy Kabasuuga on building coalitions within UN & Eswatini for school feeding Duncan: Welcome
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Featured image for “Will growth be enough to end poverty? New Projections of the UN Sustainable Development Goals”

Will growth be enough to end poverty? New Projections of the UN Sustainable Development Goals

October 17, 2023
Guest post by Arief Anshory Yusuf, Zuzy Anna, Ahmad Komarulzaman and Andy Sumner Today, October 17th is the UN International Day for the Eradication of Poverty (you already knew that, right?). In new analysis for UNU-WIDER, we assess progress towards the global poverty-related SDGs, specifically monetary poverty, undernutrition, child and maternal mortality, and access to clean water and basic sanitation.
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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 “The Global role of Grandmothers in the Care Economy”

The Global role of Grandmothers in the Care Economy

February 1, 2023
In recent years, Oxfam’s been doing some pioneering work on the ‘care economy’, aka the bit Adam Smith left out (example here and here). My uninformed mental image of this had been all about the role of parents, generally mothers, in running the household and bringing up the kids, so I was struck by a recent Economist piece on the
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Featured image for “Student Summer vlog and campaign: Tackling period poverty in France”

Student Summer vlog and campaign: Tackling period poverty in France

August 23, 2022
Next up in this series of posts from my LSE activism students, Alexia Fageroux, who went with a sound-off vlog option for her assignment. Full project on which her vlog is based here. Next week, back to boring old me – sorry!
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Featured image for “Summer Student blog and campaign: Why you should change your mind about the start-up that invented the Covid vaccine”

Summer Student blog and campaign: Why you should change your mind about the start-up that invented the Covid vaccine

August 18, 2022
Next up in our summer student post series is Andreas Brox. Here’s his full project, on which this blog is based. It has been two years since this fricking pandemic has started and like everyone else, I am pretty sick of hearing about it. Thankfully, it feels very much like it is over in Germany, where I am from, or
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Hunger, Inequality and the Birth of Oxfam

May 18, 2022
This post by Oxfam’s Max Lawson first appeared on its Equals blog. I’ll be summarizing our new paper on the East Africa hunger crisis tomorrow. The other day I was speaking to Nellie, an old friend and primary school teacher in Malawi, about the rapidly rising prices: ‘Prices have risen, just since last month.  Imagine a loaf of bread was
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The Disabled Ukrainians Doing What the UN Can’t (or Won’t?)

March 9, 2022
Guest post from Anna Landre, one of my amazing students, who has bunked off class (with permission) to do some amazing work on Ukraine. And she’s pretty angry about what she’s seen. As a 23-year-old wheelchair user halfway through a Master’s degree at the London School of Economics, I didn’t expect to spend my past week working 16 hours a
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