Thanks to Exfamer Bert Maerten for sending over this interesting reflection by Soli Middleby (16 page paper from Partnership Brokers Association). Some excerpts: ‘Leaving aside the complex and important debates around the actual effectiveness of development3 there should be little doubt that the industry operates on a significant, complex, and historic power imbalance. The development industry’s own practitioners and policy

Kudos to the Economist’s graphics team. Some recent examples: It’s continuing to do important analysis of excess deaths from Covid. ‘the world’s current total mortality rate exceeds projections from 2019 by 5%, or 3m lives per year.’ = 4th leading cause of death worldwide Striking picture of the shift of global economic centre of gravity since 1990s, with obvious (geo)political

Links I LikedReforming the World Bank: some good ideas, but where’s the power, politics and feasibility?How to get people to take the Care Economy seriously? Some top (evidence-based) tips

Been taking a look at Silvia Galandini, Anam Parvez and Nick Gadsby’s new Oxfam new ‘toolkit’ on building public pressure for change on the care economy, by constructing a ‘fresh and compelling narrative about the value of all care’. The toolkit is based on research to understand how the general public across the UK thinks about paid and unpaid care

Spent a half day at ODI recently discussing the reform of the Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) – the global ones like World Bank, the regional ones like the Asia or African Development Bank, and the new ones like the BRICs Bank. It was interesting for what was said, but also for what was missing. First what was said: On World

Only Nikola Tesla describing a cell phone in an interview conducted by journalist John B. Kennedy. In 1926. Oxfam’s newly updated Make Change Happen course for activists opens on June 19th. 8 week free online course developed in partnership with Open University. Super popular 15k registered for first version and their feedback was v +ve. Deets and register here Some

Where thinking and working politically meets gender: tactics that have workedPodcast + transcript: did we get it wrong on land grabs in Africa? In Conversation with Laura GermanHow do we Start Thinking About AI and Development? (one post by me, one by ChatGPT!)What does politically smart support to democracy and human rights look like?Can humanitarian experience guide the development of

After years of political wrangling, we are finally seeing some progress in terms of wealthy nations shouldering some (small part) of the burden of Loss & Damage – but how do we make sure we don’t repeat the mistakes of the past?  Debbie Hillier of Mercy Corps and Paul Knox Clarke of Adapt Initiatives explore in a new paper how

Guest Post by Laure-Hélène Piron and Alina Rocha Menocal with Kate Byom This blog is published to coincide with a webinar on “Making a difference: How Applied Political Economy Analysis contributes to impact through better informed decisions” on Wednesday 24 May. It shares the findings of a Learning Review on the use of PEA in three USAID-funded human rights projects

In response to Friday’s post on AI and Development, PS Baker asked when FP2P would publish its first AI generated post. Here you go. My Question: Write a 600 word blogpost on the risks and opportunities of AI for international development, in the style of Duncan Green’s From Poverty to Power blog ChatGPT’s response: ‘Introduction: Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged

Spent a mind-bending day this week discussing AI and development with some NGO and legal folk (Chatham House Rule, so that’s all I can say, sorry). Everyone in the room knew at least ten times more than me on the subject. Perfect. Some impressions/ideas. The catalyst for the discussion was the UK Government’s new White Paper on AI and Innovation,

Laura German is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Georgia, and author of Power/Knowledge/Land: Contested Ontologies of Land and its Governance in Africa (University of Michigan Press) Duncan: I’m really pleased about this conversation because I’m way out of date on this topic. This is about land ownership and what we used to call land grabs. I last worked