On World AIDS day, Ian Hodgson and Marina Schkot introduce a new study by Frontline AIDS. For the estimated 38 million people living with HIV, COVID-19 has meant one pandemic overlaid on another. The interaction between the two pandemics, and how the HIV community has responded, provide important lessons for the future. Sex workers, people who use drugs, adolescent girls

With schools closed and families feeling the pinch of inflation and lost income, UNICEF estimates that the pandemic has put an additional 10 million girls at risk of early marriage. Shaheen Anam of the Manusher Jonno Foundation, a Bangladeshi organization that has supported over 200 human rights and civil society groups in the last 20 years, explains why COVID-19 has

Amina Hersi, Charlotte Becker and Florence Ogola introduce Oxfam’s new paper on the ‘dual crises’ of Covid and GBV. First published on the Oxfam International blog. Women, girls, trans and non-binary people have always faced the horrific and sometimes lethal consequences of gender-based violence in our societies, throughout history, in all countries, and in all walks of life. Even before

Making Change: What Works? is a smart new report from IPPR and the Runnymede Trust, drawing lessons from some of the most effective campaigns of recent years. Although it is UK focussed, there’s lots to chew on for activists everywhere. Here’s the exec sum, which mercifully, didn’t even need an edit. Movements change the world. Throughout history, loosely organised networks

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

Throughout the pandemic, social protection practitioners have been drawing on past experience and established ‘mantras’ to support governments and emergency actors to respond to the crisis. Valentina Barca, the Team Lead for the FCDO-GIZ-DFAT-funded SPACE service shares reflections on whether and how these mantras have been taken up. COVID-19 caught us all by surprise. The social protection sector was no exception. Often

Beyond excited to host a development hero, Jean Drèze, on the blog. He introduces some new research showing that in India, the prolonged closure of schools has taken a heavy toll. A sound strategy to deal with this crisis is nowhere in sight. Indian children have been “locked out” of school for almost a year and a half. This lockout,

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 took part in a fun podcast recently on ‘water for development’. I was in the company of some people who actually know about the subject (Michael Wilson, Rosie Wheen, Melita Grant and Rachel Mason Nunn). I was playing my favourite role in this final wrap-up conversation of a series of discussions, that of informed ignoramus burbling on about how

Guest post from Derek Thorne Back in 2015, Duncan Green published a piece on FP2P asking whether a TripAdvisor-style feedback system could work in development. If you follow the link, you’ll see it generated a lot of feedback! The idea was – and is – that TripAdvisor, and systems like it, have put significant power in the hands of consumers,

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