Featured image for “Development Nutshell (22m). Audio roundup of blogs on From Poverty to Power, w/b 7th August (dog interrupted)”

Development Nutshell (22m). Audio roundup of blogs on From Poverty to Power, w/b 7th August (dog interrupted)

August 12, 2023
Desperately trying to get through this week’s posts before going on holiday, while also looking after my son’s hyperactive spaniel. And here’s a bonus pic of the pooch in question
Read more >>
Featured image for “How adaptive M&E from the peace sector can help demonstrate the value of aid”

How adaptive M&E from the peace sector can help demonstrate the value of aid

August 10, 2023
Guest post by Sebastian Kratzer A few years ago, Alex Douglas from the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue shared his thoughts on this blog on what aid practitioners could learn from the peace sector’s approach  to operating in complex political environments. But the lessons from the peace world for other aid practitioners can be spun even further. Over the last decade,
Read more >>
Featured image for “Do Southern-based Transnationals behave worse than Northern ones?”

Do Southern-based Transnationals behave worse than Northern ones?

August 9, 2023
I’m a big fan of league tables for comparing performance by powerful players, whether governments, NGOs or corporates. If done well, they can prompt a race to the top, with players competing to move up the table in successive years. The latest one of these to cross my timeline was the 2023 Food and Beverage Benchmark Report, produced by ‘KnowTheChain’,
Read more >>
Featured image for “Designing ‘Research for Impact’ still seems difficult for a lot of academics. Why?”

Designing ‘Research for Impact’ still seems difficult for a lot of academics. Why?

August 8, 2023
Because I have one foot in the LSE and one in Oxfam, I sometimes get hauled in as a research ‘user’ (makes me sound like I have a drug problem) to review research funding applications and discuss whether, if approved, the research is likely to have much impact on the real world. I have to say, that recent experiences have
Read more >>
Featured image for “Links I Liked”

Links I Liked

August 7, 2023
Barbie. What a fantastic film! I was enthralled from the first scene – a hilarious riff on 2001 A Space Odyssey. It manages to get some great messages on gender over in a way that is witty, knowing and not at all worthy. What’s more the kind of people who are going to and talking about the movie are way
Read more >>
Featured image for “Development Nutshell. 25m of me talking you through the FP2P posts for w/b 31st July”

Development Nutshell. 25m of me talking you through the FP2P posts for w/b 31st July

August 5, 2023
­­­Links I Liked How did we get here? Great chronology of citizen and corporate action on climate In your mid/late career and want to do a PhD? Here’s some good news. The Gross Domestic Problem: what would a new economic measure that values women and climate look like?
Read more >>
Featured image for “The Gross Domestic Problem: what would a new economic measure that values women and climate look like?”

The Gross Domestic Problem: what would a new economic measure that values women and climate look like?

August 3, 2023
Measuring progress by Gross Domestic Product leads straight to gender injustice, austerity and environmental ruin. Anam Parvez Butt and Alex Bush introduce a new Oxfam discussion paper that aims to encourage debate about alternative metrics, and calls on advocates to join the “Beyond GDP” movement Since its official adoption at the Bretton Woods conference in 1944, Gross Domestic Product or
Read more >>
Featured image for “In your mid/late career and want to do a PhD? Here’s some good news.”

In your mid/late career and want to do a PhD? Here’s some good news.

August 2, 2023
One of the most popular posts on FP2P has been ‘How to get a PhD in a year (without giving up the day job)’. It discussed my ‘PhD by published work’, completed in 2011 at Oxford Brookes University, and what a great fit it was for someone well on in their career, or who has grown-up bills to pay. Fast
Read more >>
Featured image for “How did we get here? Great chronology of citizen and corporate action on climate”

How did we get here? Great chronology of citizen and corporate action on climate

August 1, 2023
I’m spending the summer lull updating How Change Happens and am coming across some really interesting stuff. To update the book’s case study on the Paris Climate Summit of 2015, Irene Guijt sent over ‘A short history of the successes and failures of the international climate change negotiations’ an excellent (open access) paper by Mark Maslin, John Lang and Fiona
Read more >>
Featured image for “Links I Liked”

Links I Liked

July 31, 2023
Your weekly reminder that, as twitter dies (and turns into an absurdly sinister X – what is that about?), I’m moving some activity to Linked In – please follow. Potholes Activists seem be particularly creative and effective. Here’s Joe Coughlan in Bromley, South London. Much ruder versions also get results, apparently. The torrent of opinion pieces on AI (some of
Read more >>
Featured image for “Development Nutshell podcast. 25m roundup of posts for w/b 24th July”

Development Nutshell podcast. 25m roundup of posts for w/b 24th July

July 29, 2023
Links I LikedSchool children are bearing the brunt of the global hunger crisis – just feed themHow the United Nations and the World Bank can turbo charge the effort to reduce InequalityEvaluating the Evaluations: What lessons can Oxfam draw from a Decade of Scrutiny?
Read more >>
Featured image for “Evaluating the Evaluations: What lessons can Oxfam draw from a Decade of Scrutiny?”

Evaluating the Evaluations: What lessons can Oxfam draw from a Decade of Scrutiny?

July 27, 2023
Propaganda and opinion are easy; establishing the truth is hard (and I speak here as someone once branded Oxfam’s ‘chief opinionator’ – thanks John Magrath). Oxfam has been wrestling with different ways to evaluate impact for decades and in a new paper, a team led by Katrina Barnes ploughed through 67 ‘Effectiveness Reviews’ – rigorous impact evaluations on randomly selected
Read more >>