One more week to apply for a new job working with me to take this blog up a level, source lots of great content from southern authors etc. Details here (16th December deadline). How Change Happens now available in Chinese These motor cycle gangs are getting out of hand. Ht The Filling Station Tom Baker risks another sausagefestgate with this male-dominated,

For the G20 and this week’s big climate change gabfest in Poland, Kate Raworth pulled together this smart piece on where the world’s countries have got to on living inside the doughnut, and where the burgeoning band of doughnut economists have got to in turning Kate’s big idea into a practical tool. It originally appeared on her Exploring Doughnut Economics

Should I be worried/offended when someone pays me to write less? Nah, actually I’m very excited. As regular readers may have noticed, In recent years I’ve been inviting more guests onto the blog, but have always struggled to find the time and resources to do it properly. Now the Ford and Hewlett Foundations have kindly stumped up some funding to

An inspired adbuster transformed some racist graffiti in Walthamstow, London, into something a lot more welcoming. Ht Ellie Levenson What Do African Aid Recipients Think of Charity Ads? How to run a ‘book sprint‘ that enables a group of authors to write a book in 3-5 days Bangladesh’s gender wage gap is the lowest in the world (ILO) ht Naila

Another day, another coffee conversation about how to ensure that academic research has impact beyond the ivory tower/dreaming spires. This time it was with Duncan McLaren, who has just started as a fellow Professor in Practice (is this A Thing now?) at the Lancaster Environment Centre and has been asked to look into how its research can get greater pick-up

Working in a global organization like Oxfam means spending a lot of time on conference calls, with colleagues scattered across the globe. They can be frustrating – dodgy connections, people fading in and out, speaking too fast, or forgetting to put their phones on mute (especially if they are nipping in to the restroom – yes it happens….). People concerned

This is from a Wetherspoons (UK pub chain) training session but it feels like it could apply to lots of other institutions too. Ht Ben Phillips Less than two weeks to go until Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (aka AMLO) becomes Mexico’s new president. Check out my podcast with Ricardo Fuentes for background and reflections on the role of Civil Society

Some thoughts in response to yesterday’s challenge from Brady Mott. What might replace the project? On one level, it’s a self-defeating exercise – any alternative is likely to require spending money, staff etc and some kind of accountability. Boom – we’re back to projects! But some projects can loosen the kinds of constraints that Brady describes, getting away from the

AI, Big Data and Robotics myths and reality – the infographic. ht Tobias Denskus  What Robopocalypse? Charles Kenny does his evidence-based Pangloss thing to show that the robots really aren’t taking our jobs. But if they do, the right policy responses are not that different. Need some more good news? Prevalence of FGM among girls aged 14 and under in east

As they say on twitter, Mind. Blown. Wednesday’s rant about way aid and academia generated a fantastic discussion. Including some great putdowns. My favourite, which made me laugh out loud, came from Ryan Briggs: ‘Just to be clear, you’re arguing that academics are insular and generalize too much from shoddy evidence, and the evidence for your claim is based on

Spent a mind-stretching day last week with a bunch of social protection experts from the LSE, IMF and assorted other bodies. Social Protection includes emergency relief, permanent mechanisms such as pensions and cash transfers, and ‘social insurance’ based on people’s personal contributions. LSE boss Minouche Shafik set the scene really well: ‘The failure of safety nets is partly responsible for

I’ve spotted a recurring problem with the way the aid sector talks about fragile and conflict-affected states (FCAS). FCAS are characterized by states that are either absent or predatory – in terms of development, governments and officials are as likely to be part of the problem as part of the solution. But the aid sector, especially the official world of