May 24, 2021
Snouts in the pharma trough. Covid has created 9 new pharma billionaires, yet we’re failing to vaccinate billions of people. Covid vaccines, funded by public cash, should be first and foremost a global public good. Oxfam. Relative support of left and right leaning parties by education and income in the 1970s and 2010s. Short version – in the 1970s richer/more
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Development Nutshell: round-up (12m) of FP2P posts, w/b 17th May
May 22, 2021
No excerpt
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It’s often easier to have policy impact with research on a ‘new issue’, but proving it is just as hard
May 19, 2021
Next up in my series of interviews on the real-world influence of researchers at the LSE Centre for Public Authority and International Development, I explore the impact of Claire Elder’s work on Somalia, which raises a whole host of issues around how research can influence policy and practice: How the act of researching for a PhD can itself lay the groundwork
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Global Covid death toll 3 times higher than the usual stats suggest, and much more skewed towards poor countries
May 18, 2021
Some really important number crunching in The Economist this week. They have built an estimate of the number of ‘excess deaths’ worldwide – that is mortality above the pre-Covid average. This gives you a more accurate picture of how many people have died, because so many Covid deaths are not recorded as pandemic-related (whether because of weak stats systems, or
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Links I Liked
May 17, 2021
First a small announcement. I’m trying to dig into the impact of UK aid cuts. I’d love to talk to insiders re how partner govts are reacting; any suggestions of a strategy behind what look like random cuts. In confidence if you’d prefer. You know what to do. Argentina is leading the world with its gender-responsive Covid policies. Great article
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Development Nutshell: audio round-up (14m) of FP2P posts, w/b 10th May
May 15, 2021
No excerpt
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What is happening in Colombia? New roots and familiar responses to national protests
May 13, 2021
One of my LSE activism students asked if she could highlight the horrible response to popular protests currently going on in her native Colombia. Guest post by Daniela Duran and Lorenzo Uribe Colombia is entering its third week of protests and, although a lot of what is happening is new to the country, the political response to it has
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How scandals and crises create opportunities for Research Impact
May 12, 2021
Next up in my series of interviews on the real-world influence of researchers at the LSE Centre for Public Authority and International Development, I explore the impact of Ryan O’Byrne and Charles Ogeno’s work on how South Sudanese refugees in Uganda understand and interact with refugee camp authorities, and how they engage with those authorities when they need help or encounter
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Links I Liked
May 11, 2021
Branko Milanovic is writing some lovely stuff at the moment: Marx in Amerika: musing about whether Marxism is relevant to today’s very different brand of US capitalism Can you have a boring life and be a first-rate social scientist? (He doubts it, which could be bad news for the economics profession…) Every day brings a new headline on the UK’s
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Development Nutshell: round-up (14m) of FP2P posts, w/b 3rd May
May 8, 2021
No excerpt
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Eyes in the Sky for Community Development
May 5, 2021
Guest post by Kristina Zittel & Scott Guggenheim Earth observation (EO) with drone and satellite-based remote sensing enables the monitoring and assessment of the ever-changing natural and man-made environment in which we live. The most innovative community programs are already noting the potential of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, to enhance data collection, mapping, monitoring, and advocacy in remote
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Links I Liked
May 4, 2021
Campaigning and the Church. Excellent reflection from ‘thoughtful campaigner’ Tom Baker (what does that make the other ones, I wonder?) Turning Covid guilt into action: ‘Right now, every single place approaching normality is guilty of a massive moral failure‘. This rang painfully true ht Ranil Dissanayake “What we’re calling on the government to do is to ease the intellectual property
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