Off on hols, back in two weeks!

February 19, 2019
and no I won’t be missing you……
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Why a new report on UK aid reform is contradictory, evidence free and full of holes

February 18, 2019
Since the UK’s commitment to the international aid budget was set in law at 0.7% of Gross National Income, debates have shifted from ‘how much?’  to ‘how should we spend it?’ A new report calls for a seemingly radical shake up of how UK aid should be spent. Oxfam’s Gideon Rabinowitz explains what’s at stake, and why simplistic solutions are
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5 Things that will Frustrate the Heck out of you when studying International Development

February 15, 2019
I ran a ‘blogging for beginners’ session for my LSE students earlier this week. Some of them clearly didn’t need it. Here’s MSc Development Management student Stella Yoh. International Development is our passion – that’s why we’re all here. It’s what keeps us going through these late nights and grey London days. But let’s face it, it’s not always a fun ride. As fulfilling as
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Closing Civic Space: Trends, Drivers and what Donors can do about it

February 14, 2019
My reading pile is out of control, but I finally caught up with a useful May 2018 overview from the always excellent International Center for Not-for-Profit Law. Nothing life-changing, but a clear and concise summary of the origins of the problem and possible responses, based on some 50 contributions to a consultation by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida).
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Can watching a few videos really reduce Violence Against Women?

February 13, 2019
I’m not generally a big fan of randomised control trials (oversold, squeeze out other forms of knowledge – more here), but a recent RCT on violence against women in Uganda by researchers at Columbia University got my attention. Here are some excerpts from the summary on the website of Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA). First the summary of the summary:
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List of your most disastrous campaign own goals – more please!

February 12, 2019
I’m teaching a course on activism at the LSE and one of my students, Gaia Frazao-Nery, asked me a disarmingly simple question – can you give us some examples of advocacy campaigns that have achieved the opposite of what they wanted? I was stumped, so threw myself on the mercy of twitter. So far, I haven’t quite got the perfect
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Links I Liked

February 11, 2019
Eyes to the Right; Nose to the Left. Delightfully straight-faced explainer by the South London Press of understable confusion over weird UK parliamentary procedures ht Esther Webber Turns out she has a genius for political theatre as well as social media. AOC is having a ball now Congress has reopened. The seven types of policy makers and what they mean for
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What is different about how INGOs do Adaptive Management/Doing Development Differently?

February 8, 2019
Earlier this week I chaired a fascinating discussion on the findings of a new paper on an adaptive management (AM) experiment by Christian Aid Ireland (CAI). The paper really adds to our knowledge of AM/Doing Development Differently: It looks at the work of an INGO, when most formally identified AM practice and research involves big bilaterals like DFID Linked to
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Inequality kills: the cold, wet fate of refugee rights in Lebanon

February 7, 2019
Oxfam’s Senior Humanitarian Policy Adviser, Anna Chernova uses her own experiences as a refugee to reflect on how Lebanon can tackle inequality and protect the rights of millions of Syrians. Back in 2015, I remember standing in a damp, soaked tent in Lebanon’s Bekaa valley, watching kids run around in the snow in slippers. Their parents looked on in desperation
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Thinking and Working Politically in Economic Development Programmes – Some Sprints and Stumbles from a DFID Programme in Kyrgyzstan

February 6, 2019
Guest post by Andrew Koleros, Programme Director with Palladium, and David Rinnert, Deputy Head of Office and Governance Adviser with the UK Department for International Development’s (DFID) Central Asia Office. The views expressed in this blog do not necessarily reflect the UK government’s official policies or Palladium’s views. In November 2018 the FP2P blog posted a couple of instalments (here
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No Matter Where You Live, the World is More Unequal Than You Realise, according to new research

February 5, 2019
Update on some interesting research by Franziska Mager and Christopher Hoy. It builds on a December post on the World Bank Development Impact blog, covering more countries  and expanding the discussion to people’s misperceptions about the level of national inequality as well as their misperceptions of their own positions. New research by the Australian National University conducted in collaboration with
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Links I Liked

February 4, 2019
Arabic 101 for British officers, early 20th century ht David Kenner The art and science of measurement in aid and development. Nice write up of latest LSE lecture by the brilliant Claire Hutchings of OPM Major western brands pay Indian garment workers 11p an hour. Important new research on the home workers who ‘finish’ garments – adding buttons, tassels, embroidery
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