
April 23, 2025
Ajoy Datta draws five lessons from an analysis of how an international membership organisation influenced the 2023 High Seas Treaty.
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Land is at the heart of women’s rights in the Global South: so why no mention of it in this year’s UN political declaration?
April 10, 2025
While the landmark Beijing declaration 30 years ago on women’s rights mentioned land rights 30 times, this year’s UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) declaration fails to mention them at all. Naomi Shadrack explains why we need to put land firmly back on the global feminist agenda.
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Why the UK must take a bold stance against global attacks on women’s rights
March 19, 2025
Amid a worldwide backlash against women’s rights, and after its own aid cuts that further threaten those rights, it has never been more urgent for the UK government to speak up loudly for global gender equality, says the Gender and Development Network.
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The future of aid and what next-gen aid jobs might look like
March 12, 2025
Thinking about a career in international development? Duncan Green explores the future of the aid sector and the prospects for those who want to work in it… This post is adapted from his shiny new blog about activism, influencing and change, hosted by the LSE.
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The world looks set to miss its 2025 targets on nutrition: how should the Paris summit respond?
February 28, 2025
Each Olympic/Paralympic games is now followed by a major global nutrition summit in the host city. Sunit Bagree of Results UK sets out what campaigners will be looking for this time, including billions in extra funding, giving grants not loans and supporting the most cost-effective interventions.
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How can the UN become a Thought Leader again?
December 12, 2018
When was the last time you read anything from UNCTAD? Back in the day (say, early 2000s), its annual Trade and Development Report (TDR) was one of the big annual milestones (along with the World Development Report, Human Development Report etc). They were essential reading for any policy wonk. They’re all still being published, but they make much less of
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UN Women: the United Nations gets its act together on gender
July 9, 2010
One of the things undermining the effectiveness of the UN’s work on gender issues has been the lack of a single agency with responsibility for the subject. Now, after years of difficult negotiations, the U.N. General Assembly has voted to set up a body that will seek to improve the situation of women and girls around the world. The new body
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Development v Climate Change: a new UN report tries to square the circle
September 11, 2009
September is the start of report season, an avalanche of global roundups from UN agencies, thinktanks etc that seems to grow in number every year. As it coincides with the party conference season, start of the college year in the Northern hemisphere etc etc, it all makes for a horrific backlog. So to ease the collective bottleneck, here’s some highlights
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