Featured image for “The big choices that will shape the future of UK aid”

The big choices that will shape the future of UK aid

May 19, 2025
Protecting bilateral spending from excessive cuts is going to be the first and most important step to ensuring the FCDO can still exert influence in an era of 0.3%, say Guy Lodge and Will Paxton. They discuss the new world of a lower UK aid budget and the pitfalls and opportunities it presents.
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Featured image for “Want to make change happen? Check out this free online course”

Want to make change happen? Check out this free online course

May 15, 2025
Duncan Green introduces the brand-new edition of an Oxfam course for changemakers that he helped to design. And you can now learn how to make change happen in Arabic, French and Spanish, as well as English…
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Featured image for “Cities besieged, bakeries bombed, fields set alight: it’s time to end the use of starvation as a weapon of war”

Cities besieged, bakeries bombed, fields set alight: it’s time to end the use of starvation as a weapon of war

May 6, 2025
The blockade of food, water and relief that has brought so much hunger and suffering to Gaza is the latest example of the growing use of starvation as a weapon of war, say Lawrence Robinson and Désirée Ketabchi. That’s why Oxfam has become a founding member of the Coalition Against Conflict and Hunger – a group of civil society organizations set up last year to end the deliberate use of starvation tactics in conflict and promote the protection of civilians and humanitarian space.
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Imposter syndrome: do you have it? And is it always a bad thing?

April 3, 2025
‘One male former government minister said he felt like an imposter a lot of the time… a government minister!’ Duncan Green reflects on how a recent conversation with LSE leadership students revealed widespread feelings of imposter syndrome.
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Featured image for “Anatomy of a fall: what the rise and fall of the UK aid budget tells us about making change happen”

Anatomy of a fall: what the rise and fall of the UK aid budget tells us about making change happen

March 13, 2025
What are the lessons for activists from the cut in the UK development budget? Did big agencies get their messaging all wrong? How much damage did the closure of DFID do? Or the departure of David Cameron as PM? Katy Chakrabortty unpacks the implosion of UK aid…
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The future of aid and what next-gen aid jobs might look like

March 12, 2025
Thinking about a career in international development? Duncan Green explores the future of the aid sector and the prospects for those who want to work in it…  This post is adapted from his shiny new blog about activism, influencing and change, hosted by the LSE.
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Featured image for “Leadership in a global aid meltdown – top tips from 25 people who know”

Leadership in a global aid meltdown – top tips from 25 people who know

March 6, 2025
FP2P’s Duncan Green has a shiny new blog about activism, influencing and change, hosted by the LSE, which we’ll be sharing highlights from here. You can also subscribe here. In this post from the new blog, he shares some advice from humanitarian leaders in this bleak time for the sector – including talk more often to staff and partners, “watch the fog closely” and “don’t blabber” – and offers a couple of thoughts of his own.
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Two lessons from Trump’s attack on Aid

February 4, 2025
Whatever finally emerges from the Trump Administration’s assault on USAID (and other governments such as Switzerland jumping on the bandwagon), surely the status quo ante is unlikely to return. What to do? Yes we can keep making the case for aid, hoping that the political tide will turn, but the political consensus around aid had been under assault since long
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Featured image for “‘It feels like a more innocent time for Oxfam and for our belief in progress’: looking back on Make Poverty History ”

‘It feels like a more innocent time for Oxfam and for our belief in progress’: looking back on Make Poverty History 

February 3, 2025
Twenty years after he watched Nelson Mandela’s rousing launch speech in Trafalgar Square, Dominic Vickers reflects on the impact of the landmark Make Poverty History campaign for trade justice, debt relief and better aid – and wonders if a new generation can take up the cause again. 
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Searching for my voice, in fear and silence

December 17, 2024
Next up from my amazing LSE activism students, Fatima Aysha, a Syrian student with over five years of experience working with INGOs in Syria, including Action Against Hunger and the Aga Khan Foundation.  I wrote this blog on 23 October 2024 and decided not to publish it because of the phrase “walls have ears”, thinking that it might cause problems
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Want a bit of development-related festive cheer? Bookmark my new advent calendar

December 10, 2024
Shruti Patel shares her new advent calendar of success stories.
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Featured image for “A question from Lebanon to international humanitarians…”

A question from Lebanon to international humanitarians…

November 1, 2024
As organisations race to respond to the unfolding crisis in Lebanon, Nadine Saba – representing hundreds of Lebanese and Global South NGOs – spoke at the recent Grand Bargain humanitarian gathering in Geneva. Here, we share an edited transcript of her powerful address…
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