The year when everything changed: Why the pandemic will be remembered as a turning-point

December 23, 2020
Signing off from a grim 2020 by reprinting this Christmas editorial from The Economist, which I found both thought-provoking and consoling. Warren Harding built a campaign for the presidential election in 1920 around his new word “normalcy”. It was an appeal to Americans’ supposed urge to forget the horrors of the first world war and the Spanish flu and turn back
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Three months in, how is the Emergent Agency in a Time of Covid project shaping up?

December 22, 2020
One of the bright spots in a generally crap year has been the Emergent Agency project. It emerged in the early weeks of the pandemic from a brief conversation with Armine Ishkanian, who runs the LSE’s Atlantic Fellows for Social and Economic Equity (AFSEE) programme. Would Covid lead to new forms of grassroots organization? Wouldn’t it be interesting to monitor
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How has the Pandemic Affected Civic Space? New Report

December 21, 2020
Guest post from Niranjan J. Nampoothiri, who has just started as the Research Assistant on the Emergent Agency in a time of Covid project. Delighted to be working with you, Niranjan!   I have been following the literature on Covid-19 and civic space for several months now. One report that I was excited about, the annual People Power under Attack
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Development Nutshell: round-up (14m) of FP2P posts, w/b 14th December

December 19, 2020
No excerpt
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How to decolonise International Development: some practical suggestions

December 18, 2020
Guest post by Lucy Morris & Andres Gomez de la Torre, who work for and with INGOs in different capacities (e.g. members of staff, trustee, consultant, etc). “If your conversation on this matter is not uncomfortable, you are not having the right conversation!” Recent developments around the world have rightly brought back old calls for structural change in the aid
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Argentina introduces a Wealth Tax (aka ‘the Oxfam Tax’). Could this be the start of something big?

December 17, 2020
Asier Hernando Malax-Echevarria discusses what looks like an important advocacy win The Argentine Senate has just passed the ‘Solidarity and Extraordinary Contribution of Great Fortunes’ law, a one-off tax intended to help cover the costs of the COVID19 pandemic in a country where it has so far killed 40,000 people. The tax will pay for medical supplies, assist small and
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Gender, Power and Progress: How Norms Change

December 16, 2020
A very good paper on a fascinating and important topic, by Caroline Harper, Rachel Marcus, Rachel George, Sophia M. D’Angelo, Emma Samman, published by ODI and ALIGN. The research questions are ambitious: how gender norms have changed over the past quarter-century, what has supported and blocked changes to gender norms in a number of sectors, and how to ensure change is faster, and robust
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Featured image for “It’s Time to Invest for the 21st Century and Repurpose Humanitarian Bureaucracies”

It’s Time to Invest for the 21st Century and Repurpose Humanitarian Bureaucracies

December 15, 2020
Glad to see humanitarian guru Hugo Slim is stepping up his blogging activity. This post first appeared on the ODI page In the run-up to Christmas the big humanitarian bureaucracies have been busy asking governments for money. UN OCHA has appealed for $35 billion for the UN-led humanitarian response in 2021 (to reach 235 million people across 56 countries). UNHCR
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Links I Liked

December 14, 2020
Development speak: the gift that keeps giving COVID-19 as a ‘Critical Juncture’: A Scoping Review by John Twigg Why so many Syrian women get divorced when they move to western countries. Thought-provoking piece from Rola El-Husseini In 2015 Oxfam profiled 40 Sahrawi refugees 40 years after the Western Sahara conflict erupted. For Human Rights Day they caught up with several
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Featured image for “Development Nutshell: round-up (16m) of FP2P posts, w/b 7th December”

Development Nutshell: round-up (16m) of FP2P posts, w/b 7th December

December 12, 2020
No excerpt
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Featured image for “You can’t rethink humanitarianism without also rethinking the money. Here’s one way to do it.”

You can’t rethink humanitarianism without also rethinking the money. Here’s one way to do it.

December 11, 2020
I have a confession to make. I don’t listen to podcasts, even though I inflict them on others. When I’m at my desk, I’m much happier skimming documents (using my mad speed reading skills). If I’m out and about, I hate having something jabbering away in my ears. But my resolve is being sorely tested by the new series on
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Who wins/loses if Mexico legalizes Cannabis? Not as straightforward as you might think

December 10, 2020
A recent piece in the Economist on Mexico’s debates is an interesting addition to my library of ‘how change happens’ case studies, and reminded me of conversations I had thirty years ago, when legalization seemed a purely theoretical possibility. Would legalization mean small farmers get a new and stable market for their crop, free from the violence and chaos associated
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