
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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Fancy some Good News? Brits are getting nicer.
September 21, 2023
Fancy some good news? A fascinating piece in todayâs Guardian outlines the magnitude of the norm shifts that have taken place in the UK after the last 40 years, based on the latest British social attitudes (BSA) survey, which is marking its 40th year of mapping Britainâs cultural and political landscape. Underneath the left-right pendulum shifts of political debate, the
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Who Decides What Constitutes âKnowledgeâ on Climate Change?
August 31, 2023
Thanks to Irene Guijt for sending over her 2021 chapter (gated, sorry â boooh!) on âThe urgency for epistemic and political climate justiceâ, co-authored with Jacobo Ocharan and Velina Petrova for an edited volume, Knowledge for the Anthropocene. Donât worry about the slightly intimidating title (confession: I always find âepistemicâ sending me scuttling back to the dictionary, along with âontologicalâ,
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A historic global agreement on tax is under threat. Hereâs why.
August 22, 2023
This post by Farida Bena was originally published on the Kiliza website Every year, an estimated USD 312 billion are lost in unpaid corporate taxes around the world. By using legal loopholes, many companies avoid paying their dues â often to Southern countries that host their operations and provide cheap labour. This happens because the governments of those countries are unable to
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The Gross Domestic Problem: what would a new economic measure that values women and climate look like?
August 3, 2023
Measuring progress by Gross Domestic Product leads straight to gender injustice, austerity and environmental ruin. Anam Parvez Butt and Alex Bush introduce a new Oxfam discussion paper that aims to encourage debate about alternative metrics, and calls on advocates to join the âBeyond GDPâ movement Since its official adoption at the Bretton Woods conference in 1944, Gross Domestic Product or
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How the United Nations and the World Bank can turbo charge the effort to reduce Inequality
July 26, 2023
Guest post from Oxfamâs Anthony Kamande Over the past decade, many leading economists and global institutions such as the United Nations (UN), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank have taken a keen interest in economic inequality. Tons of inequality data have been unearthed, and inequality is now on ordinary peopleâs lips. Indeed, in 2015 the UN adopted
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Showing Your Working when you come up with a âKiller Factâ
July 12, 2023
Oxfam got some headlines last week with âWorldâs 722 biggest companies âmaking $1tn in windfall profitsââ. This is a good example of a âkiller factâ â a memorable statistic that summarizes an injustice, in this case a massive windfall for big corporates at a time of global austerity and spiralling food and fuel prices. Hereâs my 2019 guide to writing
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Why are LGBTQIA+ people in the Philippines still waiting for an anti-discrimination law?
July 6, 2023
This post first appeared on Oxfam’s Views and Voices site. Neal Igan Roxas looks back on his childhood, and at the daily challenge for LGBTQIA+ people of âbraving spacesâ in the face of hostility, to explain why it is so vital the landmark SOGIE equality bill passes into law, after a two-decade battle for anti-discrimination protection. A same-sex couple at
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How do we Start Thinking About AI and Development?
May 19, 2023
Spent a mind-bending day this week discussing AI and development with some NGO and legal folk (Chatham House Rule, so thatâs all I can say, sorry). Everyone in the room knew at least ten times more than me on the subject. Perfect. Some impressions/ideas. The catalyst for the discussion was the UK Governmentâs new White Paper on AI and Innovation,
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The Revenge of Power: A Great Book that will help you better understand Modern Politics
April 19, 2023
I do love a âbig bookâ â one with a grand sweep, which tries to make sense of disparate events and processes, and leaves you feeling a little wiser. Think Francis Fukuyama (on the rise of the state), Ha-Joon Chang (on economics of development) or Yuen Yuen Ang (on China). I came away from Moises Naimâs latest book, The Revenge
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Does digitalised social protection worsen exclusion for women?
March 15, 2023
Particularly liked the series of rather splendid blogs for International Womenâs Day, written by our amazing LSE students. Hereâs my favourite, not least because of the lovely blogging style: Does digitalised social protection worsen exclusion for women? by Divija Samria Hereâs the deal: digitisation of delivery mechanisms in public programs is increasingly being used to improve targeted approaches, reduce out-of-system
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White Saviorism in International development. Theories, Practices and Lived Experiences
March 9, 2023
Themrise Khan, Kanakulya Dickson and Maika Sondarjee introducing their new book Since the racial uprising following the murder of George Floyd in 2020, the world has been faced with the reality of racism in most of what is known as the progressive, Western world. Movements like Black Lives Matter and Rhodes Must Fall have brought to the forefront the ingrained
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