Had a nice little lightbulb moment last week, when I spoke at a meeting to launch yet another ODI paper. This one, ‘Planning for an Uncertain Future’ summarized some work by ACCRA (the Africa Climate Change Resilience Alliance), of which Oxfam is a member. The lightbulb in question was making a connection between two issues discussed in previous blog posts:

Didier Jacobs, my strategic adviser equivalent at Oxfam America, wonders why this blog hasn’t mentioned some of the big geopolitical events of recent weeks, and what it says about NGO advocacy. Last month, a significant event inflected the world order: Russia invaded Crimea. Not a word about it in these columns so far. Whether their mission is poverty alleviation, environment

For years I, along with others like Alex Evans, have been saying ‘the politics of global carbon reduction is stuck, it will require a major climate shock in the rich countries to unblock it’. The argument is that major scandals, crises etc are required to create a sense of urgency, undermine coalitions of blockers, and convince everyone that a new

Today, Oxfam is publishing a briefing on its ‘food and climate justice’ campaign. Here’s a post I wrote for the launch. When I get into my car in London, I step into a system designed to get me safely from A to B. It has seat belts, airbags, and an increasing number of electronic warning devices. The traffic system has rules

Cheryl Doss, a feminist economist at Yale University argues that (as with ‘70% of the world’s poor are women‘ ) we need to stop using the unfounded ‘women own 2% of the world’s farmland’ stat, and start using some of the real numbers that are emerging (while also demanding much better gender data). For advocates, nothing is better than having

I’ve been meeting some impressive students this week. Last night I was at a very swanky dinner organized  by the LSE Student Society of its massive International Development department (rising to 300 uber-capable one year Masters students). Tricky gig – how do you make the topic (inequality) funny, as required by the after dinner speaker genre? Your responses to my

Time past and time future What might have been and what has been Point to one end, which is always present. TS Eliot, Burnt Norton A few years ago, I used to rock up for the occasional UK government-convened scenario planning exercise (I know, exciting life or what?). They were usually run by ex Shell or BP ‘foresight people’ turned

Innovation. Who could be against it? Not even Kim Jong Un, apparently. People working on aid and development spend an increasing time discussing it – what is it? How do we get more of it? Who is any good at it? Innovation Tourette’s is everywhere. Most of that discussion takes place in areas such as programming (what we do on

Exfamer turned research consultant May Miller-Dawkins (@maykmd) tries to sort out diamonds from dross among the ever-proliferating ‘multi-stakeholder initiatives’. Have you ever had to decide whether or not to join a multi-stakeholder initiative? When I was at Oxfam there was a disagreement about whether or not to join a fledgling MSI. Some staff believed that the industry was going to use the

This International Women’s Day post comes from Serena Tramonti (right), with contributions from Rania Tarazi (left), both of Oxfam’s Middle East and North Africa (MENA) team Three years ago, weeks before the centenary of International Women’s Day,  I remember sitting in my living room in Manchester, watching on TV with hope and astonishment the brave women and men who were taking

Rachel Wilshaw, Oxfam’s Ethical Trade Manager looks back on the astonishing 20 year rise of Fairtrade. The Fairtrade Foundation launched its first products – coffee, chocolate and tea – 20 years ago. As one of the Oxfam types who sat around in the late 80s debating whether UK supermarkets would ever stock ‘alternative trade’ products, this is a moment to savour.

This guest post comes from Thomas Carothers and Saskia Brechenmacher of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, drawing from their new report, Closing Space: Democracy and Human Rights Support Under Fire When the concept of civil society took the international aid community by storm in the 1990s, many aid providers reveled in the alluring idea of civil society as a