Guest post by Ana Caistor Arendar, Head of Inequality Campaigns and Policy at Oxfam GB Over the past weeks, we’ve seen some of the richest countries in the world struggle with the effects of Covid-19 and the health and economic emergency it has brought in its wake. But at least they have the resources to cushion the blows (should they

I’ve been thinking about feedback in terms of the way Covid is playing out on the ground. Or rather, the lack of it. Lockdown interrupts/diminishes the flow of information from the ground to governments. Decision makers, be they politicians or senior officials, can’t send out researchers or underlings to find out what’s going on in the villages, cities and shanty

My essay on Covid-19 as a Critical Juncture and the Implications for Advocacy has been published by Global Policy. Huge thanks to all the people who commented on earlier drafts, including the 130 who rocked up to the Global Policy/LSE webinar – video here. My plan is now to move on to monitoring the impact and response in developing countries,

I’m a huge fan of the work of Saskia Brechenmacher and Thomas Carothers at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who regularly contribute brilliant pieces like this one to FP2P on issues of democracy and civil society. They (along with Richard Youngs) have just published a really useful survey of the impact of Covid-19 on civil society worldwide, drawing on

Second installment from Heather Marquette In yesterday’s post, I looked at some of the social and political complexities around Covid-19 and measures to tackle it, bringing in some graphics to try to better communicate what this means and what we need to worry about. Today, one more graphic (an important one, I think) introducing a process to help structure thinking

Guest post from Heather Marquette The international Covid-19 response so far makes clear that ‘one size doesn’t fit all’, and that the urgent interpretation and application of science is hugely challenging and is framed by political room for manoeuvre.  ‘One size doesn’t fit all’ is easy to say, but hard to do. As well as its immediate biological effects, the

Really wise approach to policy-making in near-total uncertainty: No-Regret Policies for the Crisis in Developing Countries by Stefan Dercon WFH is especially tough if you happen to be Banksy’s wife. Wonderful. Examples of Covid’s horrible knock-on effects are growing: Food rations to 1.4 million refugees cut in Uganda due to funding shortfall; Coronavirus derails measles vaccination across the globe Campaigning

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The responses to yesterday’s post were so enthusiastic that I’ve put together a second instalment and included a couple of links at the end to Indian authors. Seems like it would be a useful exercise to keep publishing these kinds of syntheses as the crisis evolves, so if you see particularly perceptive or striking analyses from Africa, Latin America or

Huge apologies for posting the wrong podcast (a recording interrupted by a phone call from my brother, ending after 2m with an unacceptable expletive). Here’s the right one. Thanks Katy for alerting me to the screw-up, but it kind of worries me that it was only after 100 downloads that anyone told me!

Today’s post is a must-read on internationalist communications strategies during the Coronavirus crisis. Kirsty McNeill is Chair of the Campaign to Defend Aid and Development and Richard Darlington is Campaign Director. It was originally published on Global Dashboard. Over the last few years, bringing international NGOs together to make the case for aid and development, we’ve been digging deeply into how people think