
March 19, 2025
Amid a worldwide backlash against women’s rights, and after its own aid cuts that further threaten those rights, it has never been more urgent for the UK government to speak up loudly for global gender equality, says the Gender and Development Network.
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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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How the surge in land seizures and violence by Israel in the West Bank adds up to a brutal new level of oppression
February 27, 2025
The incursion of Israeli tanks into the West Bank this week is just the latest step in an intensifying and systematic crackdown. Bushra Khalidi on five repressive tactics the Israeli government has been using, including new laws that will accelerate annexation. The strategy, she says, is now clear: make Palestinian life unlivable.
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As global water runs dry, how can we make sure billions don’t get cut off?
January 8, 2025
Over two billion people lack access to safe drinking water – and the situation is set to become bleaker still because of climate change, say Jo Trevor and Padmini Iyer. How do we build equitable and collective approaches to global water security that uphold everyone’s basic right to clean water?
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Guest speakers are not enough: this Black History Month, we need to ask where NGOs go from here on racial justice
October 14, 2024
Oxfam GB racial justice lead Rhaea Russell-Cartwright reflects on how far Oxfam and similar UK-based organisations have come and what they should think about next to deliver on racial justice – including the implications of racist riots in Britain, the need for solidarity across borders and ensuring that celebrations of this month centre the experiences of our Black staff.
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When inclusion is an illusion: sign language interpreters and the pitfalls for ‘inclusive’ development
September 6, 2024
How did a meeting for disabled people in Uganda end up using sign language that local deaf people couldn’t understand? Julia Modern reflects on how that failure is rooted in racialised ideas about who is an expert – and shares six tips for effective deaf inclusion. (And you can also watch a Ugandan Sign Language translation of the blog)
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When should we think of children as young people with agency v potential victims of abuse?
July 11, 2024
Nothing like a slightly drunken dinner table argument for getting the mental juices flowing. Most recently, I had a slight disagreement (memories a little vague) with a medic friend over child rights. I started holding forth about some work I did in the 90s that totally changed my view of children (I was a relatively new father at the time).
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Going legitimate? Tackling migration scams in Bangladesh
May 15, 2024
Millions of Bangladeshis seeking jobs abroad too often have to rely on a network of “dalal” or informal brokers that leaves them vulnerable to scams, dangerous work and exploitation. Nicola Nixon, Mir Junayed Jamal and Samiha Jamil on how a registration system could stop the scammers – with some reform-minded brokers already leading the way.
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Youth Protests: where have they come from? Where are they going?
May 3, 2024
Guest post from Camila Teixeira, Policy Specialist at UNICEF In recent years, more young people have been engaging in collective protest to advocate for causes that matter to them. From fighting racism to defending peace, from climate strikes to demands for better education or employment, these demonstrations are powerful expressions of youth agency over the issues shaping their lives, communities,
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Forgetting Rana Plaza
April 24, 2024
Guest post from Naomi Hossain, from SOAS, on the 11th anniversary of the tragedy in Bangladesh Despite heated and even violent contention around monuments and memorials in recent years, the politics of memory are still seen as largely symbolic. Apparel industry workers can tell you that this is wrong: memorials matter materially. For survivors of the 2013 Rana Plaza disaster,
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Could Activists Do Better at Resisting Backlash?
March 15, 2024
Been having a series of conversations on the general theme of ‘backlash’. Some thoughts: Background: a lot of activist thinking is predicated on being on the front foot – this is a law, policy, spending commitment or social norm that we want to change. Lots of case studies, toolkits and experience on how to do that – problem and power
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GELI Stories – Taking Risks as a Leader to protect child rights in Syria
March 13, 2024
In the fifth of this series of podcasts with UN and other aid leaders making change happen on the frontline, I talked to Panos Moumtzis, who now leads the GELI programme, about some top influencing he did in a previous job as UN Humanitarian Coordinator for Syria Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa · GELI Stories – Panos Moumtzis on how
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