Featured image for “How my new book unpacks the problem with projects”

How my new book unpacks the problem with projects

October 9, 2024
The “project” is intrinsic to modern international development – yet this basic form of organising our work is not something neutral or benign, says Caitlin Scott, but has real, often distorting, effects on the way development organisations think and act.
Read more >>

Here’s a summary of The Economist’s important critique of GDP and suggestions for reform

May 6, 2016
‘Laws are like sausages, it is better not to see them being made’ said Otto von Bismarck. Turns out you can probably add GDP to that list. Last week’s Economist had a comprehensive takedown of the uses and abuses of Gross Domestic Product as an indicator of wellbeing, economic health or pretty much anything else. People have been critiquing GDP
Read more >>

Can alternative economic indicators ever be any good if they are devised solely by experts?

August 21, 2014
This guest post comes from Oxfam well-being guru Katherine Trebeck Over the last few years there has been a spate of measurement initiatives – way too many to list here. Together they represent a positive, if disparate, effort to improve the measures that we take into account when assessing the success of something – a policy, a programme, or even
Read more >>

Voices of the Hungry; killer indicators, and how to measure the social determinants of health. New thinking on measurement with Gallup Inc.

February 4, 2014
About once a year, I head off for the plush, Thames-side offices of Gallup Inc, for a fascinating update on what they’re up to on development-related topics. In terms of measurement, they often seem way ahead of the aid people, for example, developing a rigorous annual measurement of well-being across 147 countries. Not quite sure why they talk to me –
Read more >>

At last, a sensible suggestion for post2015

February 28, 2013
After my ‘bah humbug’ paper on post2015, I’ve been largely avoiding the subject as a monumental timesuck. However, a combination of Sabina ‘multidimensional’ Alkire and Andy ‘bottom billion’ Sumner is an unstoppable force, so I’m making an exception for their new paper, Multidimensional Poverty and the Post-2015 MDGs, which is worth a skim. What Sabina and Andy do is use
Read more >>

Why do some (better) alternatives to GDP get picked up, while others sink without trace? Useful new study on political economy of indicators.

February 5, 2013
Took me a while to overcome my reluctance to read a document subtitled ‘Deliverable 1.1’ on the front page (yuk), but I’m glad I did so. The paper ‘Review report on Beyond GDP indicators: categorisation, intentions and impacts’ (cracking title too…..) is published by BRAINPOoL – ‘Bringing Alternative Indicators into Policy’ (is that the sound of teeth grinding?).  The authors
Read more >>

GDP v Well-being – the Stiglitz Commission and other news

September 23, 2009
According to Otto von Bismarck, the father of modern Germany, ‘Laws are like sausages. It’s better not to see them being made.’ Having skimmed the report of the ‘The Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress’, commissioned by President Sarkozy and released last week, I would say GDP (Gross Domestic Product, the standard measure of a country’s
Read more >>