Last week we (Oxfam International) met to discuss a series of studies on the impact of, and response to, the global economic crisis (GEC). Partly because the discussion took place in Bangkok, the research (and therefore this summary) was very weighted towards East Asia and the Pacific, but here are some initial impressions. From studies in 11 countries, if one

Two interesting ‘one pagers’ from the consistently excellent International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth, run by the UNDP and based in Brazil. In ‘Do Conditional Cash Tranfer (CCT) Programmes Work in Low-Income Countries?’ Simone Cecchini of ECLAC takes the well-known successes of cash transfers in large middle income countries such as Brazil (Bolsa Familia) and Mexico (Oportunidades) and evaluates efforts

The ODI continues to churn out some useful country research on the impact of the crisis. For a synthesis paper of its findings so far, see here. Or see the individual country case studies on Bangladesh, Bolivia, Cambodia, Indonesia, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda and Zambia. Most of the findings are by now fairly familiar – falling investment, stock markets, trade,

What are developing country governments doing to respond to the damage being inflicted by the global economic crisis? Answer, according to two new papers: not much, and they could be doing a lot more. A study from the Overseas Development Institute pulls together the draft findings from studies in ten countries. The ODI finds that in terms of economic policy

When disaster strikes in the shape of floods or droughts, aid agencies traditionally ship in food and blankets, often over great distances. But increasingly, people are trying out a novel alternative – give people envelopes full of cash and let them buy what they need. I’ve just been reading an evaluation of two such exercises in response to floods in

Here’s an example from Georgia of how well designed advocacy gets results: in this case helping 34,000 poor families gain access to state benefits and winning the introduction of an appeals procedure for those who feel unfairly excluded. It’s not glamorous, but it made a real difference, so bear with me. Like other post-Soviet Eastern European governments, the Georgian government

I recently listened enthralled to Simon Szreter of Cambridge University at an ODI conference on growth and equity (more on that later). Simon set out some of the history of social protection in the UK and its possible implications for today’s developing countries. For the two centuries before the industrial revolution, the UK had a universal system of decentralized social protection