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Oxfam has just published an interesting overview of its work on unpaid care and domestic work (UCDW) in over 25 countries since 2013, which I recommend as a good intro to an increasingly important topic in the aid and development biz. Firstly, the history: ‘Conversations on UCDW have evolved over the decades from the ‘domestic labour debate’ of the 1970s—then

Spent an intense two hours last week on a webinar discussing the initial findings, hypotheses etc of our Emergent Agency in a Time of Covid project. We had some great panellists (Laurence Cox, Yogesh Ghore, and Katherine Marshall) on social movements, livelihoods and faith organizations, respectively. I cross examined, Irene Guijt chaired, and a good spread of activists and researchers

Larissa Pelham, Oxfam’s Social Protection Adviser, reports back on a 4 day Zoomathon Covid-19 has catapulted social protection into the spotlight.  From furloughing to school feeding programmes delivered to homes, 212 states and territories across the world have planned or delivered 1179 social protection interventions in response to the pandemic.  It is the backbone support to families and individuals to

Early Covid test ‘Brief explainer on how not to communicate when inviting a “diverse” person to come speak at your event/join your club’. Essential reading, especially for event organizers etc from Nani Jansen Reventlow ht Tobias Denskus ‘Life and health in most governments’ COVID ethics are valued as equally necessary whether you are 80 or 20. This is intuitively odd.’

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Gonna let the dust settle before I attempt to pull together some thoughts on the US election, but in the meantime: There weren’t many laughs, so thanks to Owen Barder for ‘This is how an election count looks in a well-functioning democracy.’ And elsewhere, some nice gallows humour. Egypt v Brazil v US on election counting times. Egypt wins (I

Mathiness ht Antony Green → I do like an academic paper that confirms my prejudices….. ‘Jargon isn’t a sign of expertise; it’s a signal of insecurity. Based on 9 studies: when people lack status, they resort to unnecessarily technical language in an attempt to look smart. When they have status, they’re more concerned with communicating clearly.’ And check out the

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Blimey. You never know when a tweet is going to hit the spot and get a lot of retweets and likes. That’s what happened this week with a map I tweeted from The Economist, taken from an article entitled ‘The pandemic has eroded democracy and respect for human rights’ (gated). Quite a lot of questions and disagreement came in, so

Special Michel Foucault edition of Monopoly ht Patrick Dunleavy Women’s Empowerment and Economic Development: A Feminist Critique of Storytelling Practices in “Randomista” Economics. Forensic critique of Esther Duflo’s narrative/use of ‘evidence’ from Naila Kabeer Political Economy Analysis: Useful fortnightly round-up from Abt Associates. Latest is set of PEA Case studies (grouped by level of analysis – global, regional, country, sector

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