Featured image for “RIP Saleemul Huq, a true climate hero”

RIP Saleemul Huq, a true climate hero

October 30, 2023
Over the weekend, the horrible news came through of the death at 71 of Saleemul Huq, a scientist and activist who attended every single global negotiation on climate change since 1992. Saleem was a lovely man, a remorseless but invariably polite campaigner for climate action, both as Director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) in Bangladesh
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Featured image for “Whoop Whoop. Just made a personal Webpage  it’s super easy.”

Whoop Whoop. Just made a personal Webpage it’s super easy.

October 26, 2023
Prodded by my LSE department, I finally got round to creating a personal webpage this week. As well as an exercise in gross narcissism, it’s super helpful (for me) to have a single place to direct any enquiries, and remind myself (and perhaps others) about stuff I’ve done and forgotten – distant past, random interviews, papers I’ve co-authored but didn’t
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Think tanks are struggling. They need to change.

October 25, 2023
Guest post by Enrique Mendizabal of On Think Tanks Just 15% of respondents say it’s getting easier to operate as a think tank, according to the 2023 Think tank state of the sector report. And over 50% of respondents in Latin America & the Caribbean, the USA & Canada, and Africa say it is getting harder to operate. I think
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What Tactics are most Effective in Non-Violent Protest?

October 24, 2023
Continuing on yesterday’s theme of the ups and downs of mass protest, I met (albeit via zoom) with Srjda Popovic, one of my protest heroes, last week. Srdja’s a Serbian political activist who cut his activist teeth as a leader of the student movement Otpor that helped topple Serbian president Slobodan Milošević. He established the Centre for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies (CANVAS) in 2003 and
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Why did the Street Movements of the 2010s fail?

October 23, 2023
Been reading some interesting (and challenging) reflections on protest movements recently, so the next two days will cover what I’ve learned. First up a Guardian ‘long read’ from Vincent Bevins, a journo, on ‘Why did the Street Movements of the 2010s fail’. The piece is based on his new book,  If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing
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Development Nutshell (22m). Audio roundup of From Poverty to Power posts wb 9th and 16th October

October 21, 2023
Links I LikedWhich book should I review next? You decide please!How do we talk about Older People in Development and Activism?Be Care-full. A poem for the timesLinks I LikedWill growth be enough to end poverty? New Projections of the UN Sustainable Development GoalsWhat would make an Atheist spend a day discussing Faith and Development?
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What would make an Atheist spend a day discussing Faith and Development?

October 19, 2023
Had a good chat last week about one of my enduring hobby-horses: the role of faith in development, and the aid sector’s massive secular blind spot. The conversation was with Christian Aid’s Lila Caballero Sosa, who (with Islamic Relief, the Joint Learning Initiative and the University of Leeds) is putting together a big event on faith and development for next
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Featured image for “Will growth be enough to end poverty? New Projections of the UN Sustainable Development Goals”

Will growth be enough to end poverty? New Projections of the UN Sustainable Development Goals

October 17, 2023
Guest post by Arief Anshory Yusuf, Zuzy Anna, Ahmad Komarulzaman and Andy Sumner Today, October 17th is the UN International Day for the Eradication of Poverty (you already knew that, right?). In new analysis for UNU-WIDER, we assess progress towards the global poverty-related SDGs, specifically monetary poverty, undernutrition, child and maternal mortality, and access to clean water and basic sanitation.
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Links I Liked

October 16, 2023
Bit of good news out of India, for a change. On September 21st India’s parliament passed a bill reserving a third of the seats in its lower house and in state assemblies for women. Angus Deaton, Nobel Memorial Laureate, on the state of economics: “The time has come, Deaton argues, for economists to get back to serving society. ‘The discipline
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Be Care-full. A poem for the times

October 14, 2023
“Be careful to separate people from the policies of their governments.  Be careful to separate people from the actions of terrorists who live among them. Be careful not to collapse history and context into narrow interpretation. Be careful not to eschew complexity and nuance for the sake of memeification.  Be careful to recognize that grief for one side does not mean hate for the other. Be careful to understand that support for one side does not
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How do we talk about Older People in Development and Activism?

October 12, 2023
Had a nice chat with Cherian Mathews, the incoming head of HelpAge International, this week, which got me thinking about how we talk about the role of older people in development. Our conversation on possible future directions for HAI mainly centred on narratives and tactics. Narratives Obviously no one wants to go with ‘older people as victims’, which manages to
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Featured image for “Which book should I review next? You decide please!”

Which book should I review next? You decide please!

October 10, 2023
My reviews pile has crept higher over the summer and is now becoming a bit of a health and safety issue. Reviewing books takes a lot of time, which I don’t have much of right now as term has started at the LSE. But FP2P readers often appreciate the reviews for the same reason – saves them reading the whole
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