Guest post by Julien Landry and Ann Marie Smith What is possible today that was not possible before the pandemic? In early April, we brought together (on Zoom, of course) over a dozen seasoned activists, advocates and governance practitioners working on the ground in ten countries to share how COVID-19 is affecting them, their work, and their own learning as

Last week I sat down with Danny Sriskandarajah, who is leading Oxfam GB through its current upheaval. Here are some extracts, but do please listen to the full 25 minutes if you can. So Danny, you’re a year and a half into the job. People will have been watching with interest as you came in as a surprise choice –

Guest post by Ken Shadlen of the LSE The Covid-19 pandemic has sparked a global race of public- and private-led research to develop vaccines and treatments. Will patents hinder access to the products it generates? My summary? With regard to treatments (the dynamics around vaccines may differ), access problems will mainly affect middle-income countries. While low-income countries will likely receive

Following on from yesterday’s post, I wanted to write something more personal than usual, about the below-the-surface effects of moving to a 100% online working life. I think I may be suffering from something I’ve named ‘attenuating reality syndrome’. I know this is an experience mainly relevant to the minority of us who have virtual jobs, but let me explain.

Spent an hour last week zooming with a dozen senior advocacy types from a variety of international NGOs, who were on a webinar hosted by the International Civil Society Centre. Really smart, interesting people, and here are two subjects that caught my attention after I had talked a bit about my Covid as critical juncture paper (powerpoint here – please

Guest post by Gopa Thampi and Nicola Nixon of The Asia Foundation Why is the much-heralded promise of the data revolution not accelerating development in the way we expected? Why is the incredibly rapid rise of new data sources and methods of analysis paradoxically out of sync with its broader social impacts? No easy answers, but some of the reasons,

Throughout the upcoming weeks and months, Power Shifts is partnering with the Oxfam in Depth podcast to share the experiences of people living through the Coronavirus outbreak in our new Power in the Pandemic podcast. We’ll be hearing from people across the world as they tell us how COVID-19 is affecting their lives and how their communities are organizing to tackle the effects of the crisis. 

The Covid pandemic is bound to be a game-changing critical juncture for some issues in some places – maybe in all places, who knows. But what kind of transformations and how soon will we know? The problem with detecting these kinds of ‘weak signals’ is that our heads and organizations are already full of noise – especially the noise of

Guest post by Lavinia Tyrrel, Linda Kelly, Chris Roche and Elisabeth Jackson In Love in the Time of Cholera Gabriel Garcia Marquez plays on the themes of love and passion, comparing them to a plague like cholera. Referring to the two lovers in the story he notes “…if they had learned anything together, it was that wisdom comes to us

I’ve got some important news for you today. Throughout the upcoming weeks and months, Power Shifts is partnering with the Oxfam in Depth podcast to share the experiences of people living through the Coronavirus outbreak in our new Power in the Pandemic podcast. We’ll be hearing from people across the world as they tell us how COVID-19 is affecting their lives

Guest post by Mushtaq Khan and Pallavi Roy of the SOAS Anti-Corruption Evidence Consortium (SOAS-ACE) Why the COVID-19 response is undermined by corruption ‘Flattening the curve’ and lockdowns have sadly become part of our new vocabulary. That this is not just about limiting patient numbers temporarily but primarily about using the opportunity to scale up COVID-19 testing and treatment capacities

And the overall winner of our Corona Cartoon competition is….. the unknown creator of Zoom Last Supper – anyone know who we should be congratulating? It was tight though – Last Supper got 46% and ‘turn it on and turn it off again’ got 42%. Some Podcast news: My #PowerShifts colleague Maria Faciolince is starting a new #PowerInThePandemic series. Check