Over the summer, there appears to have been a big upheaval in the international system, and I’m wondering what it all means. In August, the five existing members of the BRICS club — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, expanded it with invitations to Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (BRICISSUE-AE?). According to the

Guest post by Exfamer Maya Mailer In torrential rain, I clutched my 3 year-old daughter’s little hand. I was outside Lloyd’s of London, one of the world’s biggest insurers of fossil fuels, with a group of parents, toddlers and a giant paper mache oil drum filled with dying flowers. It was almost Father’s Day 2021. We chanted and sang, and

Guest post by Rory Horner (University of Manchester) and Ken Shadlen (LSE) Various UK media reports have blamed lower than expected supply of the AstraZeneca vaccine from India for a slowing of the UK’s vaccination programme, especially delaying immunisation of the under-50s. Although five million doses of vaccines produced by the Serum Institute of India were dispatched from India to

Teniola Tayo argues that African cooperation is gaining momentum, but big challenges lie ahead. This post was first published on the ISS blog The start of trading under the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement on 1 January 2021 marks the dawn of a new era in Africa’s development journey. Over time, the AfCFTA will eliminate import tariffs on

This week’s Economist Special Report on the World Economy is a thought-provoking and beautifully written helicopter overview of the current meltdown. Some extracts: ‘Conditions before the pandemic were forged by the three biggest economic shocks of the 21st century: the integration of China into the world trading system, the financial crisis and the rise of the digital economy. As Chinese

Why don’t more mainstream aid organizations work on the issue of illegal drugs like cannabis, coca or opium poppy? We’ve known for decades that the prevalent approach to these – prohibition – harms small-scale farmers that grow them, fuels violence, undermines the rule of law and contaminates politics (the UN estimates the illegal drugs trade is worth $500bn a year

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

Madhumitha Ardhanari is a 2019-20 Atlantic Fellow for Social and Economic Equity at the International Inequalities Institute, London School of Economics. She has worked as a sustainability strategist and futures researcher at Forum for the Future, and has five years of experience coaching businesses and organisations to adapt to long-term sustainability challenges. Until six months ago, I didn’t care much

Oxfam today publishes (with UK think tank, the Foreign Policy Centre) a collection of essays from parliamentarians and policy experts called ‘Finding Britain’s role in a changing world: building a values based foreign policy’. Here are a few highlights from the conclusion, snappily written by Adam Hug, Abigael Baldoumas, Katy Chakrabortty and Danny Sriskandarajah: ‘The extent to which the United

I arrived at Oxfam towards the end of its big Make Trade Fair campaign on global trade rules. One of its core figures was Romain Benicchio, who just got in touch with this piece about how one aspect of that campaign has become all-too personal. One of the major illustrations of the rigged rules and double standards that shaped (and

Guest post from Jaime Atienza of Oxfam Intermon Here we go again. Though different to their “first debt crisis”, which was incubated in the 80s, hit in the 90s and was resolved (partly) in the 2000s, the situation is again profoundly uphill for a growing number of African countries: in 2019 their debt repayments as a percentage of revenues will

Not a single one of my LSE students reads the Economist. That may be down to the selection bias of people wanting to take my course on activism, but I think they’re missing out. If, like me, you’re liberal on social issues, sceptical on economic laissez faire, and just plain confused on politics, then at least read the Economist, which