Videos I liked: animated marxism; leadership and the dancing guy; adapting to climate change

July 30, 2010
OK, this week’s posts have been fairly demanding, so let’s relax a bit. I’ve been getting a pile of links to excellent youtubes and the like. If you’re in an open plan office like me, sticking on the headphones and watching videos during office hours can be a bit awkward (‘it’s work related, honest’), so either brave the disapproval or book
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The co-creator of the UN’s new Multidimensional Poverty Index defends her new baby

July 29, 2010
Sabina Alkire responds to the previous posts by Martin Ravallion and me on her new ‘Multidimensional Poverty Index’. She is director of the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI). “As Martin Ravallion points out, we agree that poverty is multidimensional. The question is whether our efforts to incorporate multiple dimensions into the very definition of who is poor and
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Guest Blog: World Bank research director critiques the new UN poverty index

July 28, 2010
Martin Ravallion is Director of the World Bank’s research department, the Development Research Group. These are the views of the author, and need not reflect those of the World Bank. “Everyone agrees that poverty is not just about low consumption of market commodities by a household.  There are also important non-market goods, such as access to public services, and there
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How can we improve the way we measure poverty? The UN’s new poverty index (and groovy graphics)

July 27, 2010
Ask poor people what poverty is like, and they typically talk about fear, humiliation and ill health, at least as much as money. But can the non-income dimensions of poverty be measured in a way that allows policy makers to weigh priorities and allocate resources? If not, the danger (as often happens) is that decision makers and documents initially nod
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Why Google Reader saves you time and expands your mind, with some links I liked on Africa, Climate Change and Aid

July 23, 2010
Back from holiday and in about an hour, I’ve just skimmed 250 pieces from the last three weeks of writing from my 15 favourite writers and bloggers, everyone from Paul Krugman and Martin Wolf to Texas in Africa and Political Climate. I didn’t have to go searching for them – they were all waiting for me on my homepage when
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I give up, this blog is now on Facebook

July 22, 2010
As a technologically challenged grumpy old man, I am one of the 90% of the world’s population who is still not on Facebook (to be honest, mainly because I’m worried about not having any friends). But as with Twitter, this blog is now dipping its toe in the murky waters of social networking. ‘From Poverty to Power’ is now available as
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New books on development: bad microfinance; climate change and war; what works; inside the World Bank; mobile activism

July 21, 2010
One of the perks of writing a blog is that I can scrounge review copies of development-related books. I’m sure they’re all fascinating and I really want to read them but alas, they don’t come with extra hours in the day attached. So I now have a growing pile by my desk that is in danger of becoming a health
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Global population, the Hans Rosling way – Ikea meets powerpoint

July 20, 2010
My favourite lecturer on development, Hans Rosling, has gone post-digital. His new TED lecture on global population growth uses Ikea storage boxes instead. But don’t worry, he gets onto his trademark whizzy graphics at the end, and the result is spellbinding, as always. His message? If you want to reduce global population growth, start by increasing child survival rates.
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What future for peasant communities in the North? A holiday report

July 19, 2010
Back from a week’s holiday and a ‘South in the North’ experience attending a wedding in Lewis in the Outer Hebrides (go to the top of Scotland, and turn left). My father-in-law comes from there, and his family still run a croft – a smallholding with a few sheep and cattle in one of Britain’s few remaining peasant communities. So
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Who reads this blog? Two years of blog stats and definitely time for a holiday

July 12, 2010
Google Analytics is dangerously addictive. You can see who’s visiting your blog, country by country, city by city and in real time. I have to ration myself or I’d be checking it every 5 minutes. Anyway, it turns out that I have now been writing this blog for two years. So here’s the verdict so far: Number of posts: 445 Number
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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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Can democracies kick the growth habit? A debate with Tim Jackson

July 8, 2010
Last month I spent an enjoyable hour debating zero growth with Tim Jackson in his back garden, for a slot in the July issue of New Internationalist magazine. Tim is the UK’s first Professor of Sustainable Development (at Surrey University) and author of the excellent Prosperity Without Growth (reviewed here). We largely went over the ground covered in previous posts
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