Tackling Inequality is a game changer for business and private sector development (which is why most of them are ignoring it)

March 31, 2016
Oxfam’s private sector adviser Erinch Sahan is thinking through the implications of inequality for the businesses he interacts with Mention inequality to a business audience and one of two things happens. They recoil in discomfort, or reinterpret the term – as social sustainability or doing more business with people living in poverty. Same goes for the private sector development professionals
Read more >>

Is Decentralization Good for Development?

March 30, 2016
My LSE colleague Jean-Paul Faguet has got a book out on decentralization. Here’s where he’s got to on the narrative, following multiple launch events I’ve just published a book by this name, and have spent a fair part of the last few months lecturing on it in various countries. Many people have asked me “So is decentralization good for development?”
Read more >>

Links I Liked

March 29, 2016
Where does the world’s food grow? Good overview + maps from Brookings Institution What’s the latest economic research on Africa? David Evans with another monster instant bibliography (plus links) of the papers presented at the recent African Economics conference ‘Boaty McBoatface’ wins online competition to name new polar research ship against stiff competition from Bloody Cold Here, What Iceberg?, Captain
Read more >>

What did trade campaigns achieve? Plus reinventing Robert Chambers & changing aid narratives: some Berlin conversations

March 24, 2016
Had a really interesting couple of days in Berlin last week, at the invitation of the German government aid agency, GIZ. Also spent time with the impressive policy and campaigns wonks at Oxfam Germany. Here’s a few of the topics that came up. What did all that trade campaigning achieve? From the late 90s to 2005, when I was working
Read more >>

Payment by Results hasn’t produced much in the way of results, but aid donors are doing it anyway. Why?

March 23, 2016
I recently attended (yet another) seminar on the future of aid, where we were all sworn to secrecy to allow everyone (academics, officials etc) to bare their bosoms with confidence. So I can’t quote anyone (even unattributed – this was ‘Chatham House plus’). But that’s OK, because I want to talk about Payment by Results, which was the subject for
Read more >>

If you think knowledge is expensive, try ignorance. Smart new job in Oxfam’s research team

March 22, 2016
Oxfam’s new head or research Irene Guijt debuts on FP2P to urge you to come and work with her. ‘How Change Happens’ is a pretty popular topic of late on this blog, in case you hadn’t noticed. And not without reason.  In a sector that invests $140 billion per year to reduce poverty and injustices, it is not just useful 
Read more >>

Links I Liked

March 21, 2016
Europe according to Vladimir Putin [h/t Amazing Maps] The top 10 sources of data for international development research. Handy users guide The Bridge to Sodom and Gomorrah. Wonderful long read on life and struggle in an Accra slum [h/t Alex Evans] How to deal with protestors. There’s President Obama, and then (sigh) there’s Donald Trump Why do so many World
Read more >>

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
Read more >>

Does “Rational Ignorance” make working on transparency and accountability a waste of time?

March 18, 2016
Guest post from Paul O’Brien, Vice President for Policy and Campaigns, Oxfam America (gosh, they do have august sounding job titles, don’t they?) As the poorest half of the planet sees that just 62 people have more wealth than all of them, collective frustration at extreme inequality is increasing.  To rebalance power and wealth, many in our community are turning
Read more >>

Industrial Policy meets Doing Development Differently: an evening at SOAS

March 17, 2016
It’s always interesting when a neglected issue suddenly resurfaces in multiple locations. That’s been happening with industrial policy – in particular the role of governments in developing their manufacturing industries. ActionAid has a new report out, arguing that promoting manufacturing through industrial policy is essential if countries want to generate decent work and tackling inequality. Then I went to a
Read more >>

Which of these three books on complexity and development is right for you? Review/user’s guide

March 16, 2016
Dave Algoso (@dalgoso ) with a handy guide to what to read for those wondering what all this complexity stuff is about In the last few years, complexity thinking has found its way into general development discourse. Anyone reading this blog or others has likely encountered some of the terminology, even if the technical pieces remain elusive to you. Ready to
Read more >>

Why everyone should have an RSS feed for daily news (and should help me replace the one I just deleted by accident)

March 15, 2016
Well that’ll teach me. I was just trying to write a post about my RSS feed and I’ve managed to delete the lot. No idea how. Can you help me reassemble/improve on my daily reading list? The background: chatting to colleagues at Oxfam, I’m always surprised how few of them use RSS software (which apparently stands for ‘Real Simple Syndication’)
Read more >>