Featured image for “How to be a Good Ancestor: Book Review”

How to be a Good Ancestor: Book Review

July 31, 2020
I owe Roman Krznaric – his brilliant 2008 paper How Change Happens, written as input to a long-forgotten Oxfam book called ‘From Poverty to Power’, got me thinking about change as a process, a thing in itself. Eight years later (my brain takes its time) I nicked his title for a book. In the intervening years, Roman has become a
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Featured image for “Zooming in with LSE’s thinkers on International Development (and me)”

Zooming in with LSE’s thinkers on International Development (and me)

July 30, 2020
One of my more enjoyable projects during lockdown has been finding out what my LSE colleagues do all day. We have recorded a series of 15 minute podcasts called ‘Zooming in With ….’ (catchy, eh?). Each interview is roughly divided up between their lives, an area of their research, and what insights it provides onto the current pandemic and response.
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The Emotional Chemistry of Rebellions

July 29, 2020
Really liked this diagram that came through my twitter feed recently, and the accompanying text, from Ricardo Levins Morales. ‘A moment of rebellion can give rise to sustained movement growth & expanding people power (Stonewall, Ferguson); peak & quickly fade away (2006 immigrant rights marches); or create a burst of growth followed by steady decline (response to assassinations of BPP
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Featured image for “What have we learned from four years’ research into empowerment and accountability in fragile/violent settings?”

What have we learned from four years’ research into empowerment and accountability in fragile/violent settings?

July 28, 2020
I’m still reeling from my first serious zoomarathon – 12 hours on zoom over 3 days (plus prep), with 50 researchers around the world from the Action for Empowerment and Accountability (A4EA) consortium. I can report back that unfortunately, my mood swings are much the same as in conferences (but with added anxiety/grumpiness from struggling to manage combo of four
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Links I Liked

July 27, 2020
BLM continues to inspire reflection and rethinking: ‘Racism is very costly to its victims but also to racists—everyone is worse off in a double defeat. Ethnicism carries big opportunity costs and causes psychological damage (post-colonialism stress disorder.) Celestine Monga on the economy of prejudices. How (not) to write about global health Revisiting the Brixton struggle [i.e. the 1981 riots]. Interview
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What does COVID tell us about responding to the Climate Crisis?

July 24, 2020
Guest post by Paul Knox-Clarke While Europe adjusts to a ‘new abnormal’, COVID-19 infection and mortality are still increasing in much of the rest of the world. The global response to this pandemic still has a long way to run, and it is too early to judge how effective emergency management and humanitarian actions have been, particularly in fragile and
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How has global multi-dimensional poverty changed over the first ten years of measurement?

July 23, 2020
Sabina Alkire presents the headlines from the latest Multi-Dimensional Poverty report Poverty is not just about income – dollars per day. It includes indicators on poor health, education, housing and more (see graphic). For the last ten years, we’ve been measuring this more nuanced multi-dimensional poverty – here’s what we’ve found. At least 1.3 billion out of 5.9 billion people
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How has Corruption driven China’s Rise? Yuen Yuen Ang discusses her new book

July 22, 2020
I sat down (via Zoom) this week with one of the most interesting observers of China, Yuen Yuen Ang. Her ground-breaking new book, China’s Gilded Age (see my review here), discusses the links between corruption and China’s stellar rise – and the real history of corruption and capitalism. DG: China disproves everything we hear from Western political scientists. People like
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Featured image for “How do recipient countries regard China’s aid? Two new papers shed light”

How do recipient countries regard China’s aid? Two new papers shed light

July 14, 2020
Guest post by Hannah Ryder, CEO of Development Reimagined, and former head of partnerships for UNDP China What do the governments of countries like Cameroon or Cambodia really think of Chinese aid and loans? It’s a question few commentators and funders ask, and even fewer are interested in helping respond to the challenges they raise. Instead, the focus is typically
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Links I Liked

July 13, 2020
Might be time for the Avon and Somerset Police to consider using a different media spokesman, or at least calling him Robert…. Ht James Herring ‘8 big food & drink companies paid out over $18bn to shareholders since January – ten times more than has been requested in the UN COVID-19 appeal to stop people going hungry.’ New Oxfam report
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Development Nutshell: Audio summary (15m) of FP2P posts, w/b 6th July

July 11, 2020
My last round up before heading off for holiday for a week. Walking in the English rain – what’s not to like?
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Featured image for “Effective Activism in a Time of Coronavirus: what are we learning six months in?”

Effective Activism in a Time of Coronavirus: what are we learning six months in?

July 10, 2020
Kirsty McNeill of Save the Children had a great piece on Global Dashboard this week. It mainly focuses on the UK, but I think its relevance is much wider than that. I’ve cut down the original for the tl;dr community, but if you have time, do read the full post here. In a fight between a rewind and a revolution,
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