#PowerShifts Resources: Wellbeing and Development

June 4, 2019
This new stream of resources that we’ll be posting on FP2P will include links to stories and projects that can engage us in further reflection about the many blindspots involved in development research and practice, as well as ideas to make those power shifts happen at every level. Wellbeing seems to be something we all want, but like all things,
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Can the UK become a Human Economy?

September 15, 2017
Rising inequality is a global problem. Oxfam inequality guru Deborah Hardoon appraises a new report on its manifestations in the UK. Last week the IPPR, a progressive policy think tank, published a new report, ‘A time for change: A new vision for the British Economy’, which argues that “the economy we have today is creating neither prosperity nor justice. This
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Life in a time of Food Price Volatility: 4 years of research in a 4 page infographic

May 5, 2017
IDS and Oxfam have put together a snazzy infographic/executive summary of their four year research project, with links to the main documents for those old fashioned enough to want to read something. What do you think of the format?
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Guardian launches important new Website on Inequality

April 28, 2017
The Guardian launched a promising new website on inequality this week, edited by Mike Herd. ‘Over the coming year, the Guardian’s Inequality Project – supported by the Ford Foundation – will try to shed fresh light on these and many more issues of inequality and social unfairness, using in-depth reporting, new academic research and, most importantly, insights from you, our audience, wherever
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It’s international happiness day today, and there are some baffling national winners and losers

March 20, 2016
It’s international happiness day today, so what better way to ruin my Sunday morning than blogging about it? The World Happiness Report has a short update to mark the day. Happiness may sound a slightly woolly concept, but actually the report is based on rigorous assessments by Gallup of life satisfaction indicators (see here for more). Some highlights: Denmark wins
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Let’s Talk About Sex: why sexual satisfaction & pleasure should be on the international development agenda

October 22, 2014
This guest post is by Chloe Safier (@chloelenas), Regional Gender Lead for Oxfam in Southern Africa, with thoughtful contributions from Marc Wegerif I was sitting at dinner with my Oxfam colleagues on a Sunday night, just before a country strategy meeting. Over grilled fish and cokes, I mentioned an article I’d seen recently in the Guardian that spoke to the need
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Gallup’s global Well-Being Index. Great data, shame about the (lack of) analysis.

September 19, 2014
Gallup has just published its Global Well-Being Index, based on a survey of 134,000 adults in 135 countries – i.e. a big exercise. The methodology is rigorous, presided over by Angus Deaton, who also contributes a glowing foreword. The index includes five elements of well-being: purpose, social, financial, community, and physical. Here’s what it finds for the BRICS, for example (headline message,
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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
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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
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What can opinion polls tell us about well-being and revolution? Quite a lot, actually

October 15, 2012
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How can we measure Scotland's well-being? New index from Oxfam.

May 3, 2012
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Poverty reduction v well-being: a cash transfer experiment from Malawi

June 29, 2011
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