Featured image for “The Changing Nature of (my) ‘Field Trips’”

The Changing Nature of (my) ‘Field Trips’

January 24, 2023
Check out this 7m video of my recent trip to Papua New Guinea. It was commissioned by The Voice Inc, one of the partner organizations for the Building Community Engagement in Papua New Guinea (BCEP) programme I’m working with in PNG. I have to say, I’ve never been the subject of anything so slick and well made, (my wife Cathy
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Links I Liked

January 23, 2023
Singhsburys v Morrisinghs…… A tragedy pushed to the shadows: the truth about China’s Cultural Revolution. Evocative long read from Tania Branigan, excerpted from her new book. Top Oxfam job: Head of Washington DC office, influencing the IMF, World Bank etc. Following the excellent Nadia Daar. Deadline 29th Jan Governance diaries: a method that brings together the strengths of ethnographic, longitudinal,
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Featured image for “Development Nutshell: round-up (28m) of FP2P posts, w/b 16th January”

Development Nutshell: round-up (28m) of FP2P posts, w/b 16th January

January 21, 2023
No excerpt
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Featured image for “What can Oxfam’s new Davos Report teach us about Killer Graphics?”

What can Oxfam’s new Davos Report teach us about Killer Graphics?

January 19, 2023
Ever since Matt Griffiths and I came up with the ‘cowfact’ in the early 2000s, I’ve been struck by the power of ‘killer facts’ in NGO communications (heck, even Fidel Castro used Oxfam ones). But things have moved on, and now we live in a more visual, tweetable age of ‘killer graphics’. So if killer facts reveal an injustice through
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Featured image for “Whether in Asia, Africa or North America, it’s been a profitable polycrisis for billionaires”

Whether in Asia, Africa or North America, it’s been a profitable polycrisis for billionaires

January 18, 2023
Guest post from Anthony Kamande on Oxfam’s Davos Inequality Report 2023 I’m having supper with my friend Reuben, a teacher who still hasn’t received last month’s salary (equivalent to around $167) and is struggling with the cost of living. I tell him that if the 1,890 richest Kenyans, those with wealth over Ksh600 million ($5 million), paid as little as
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Featured image for “Ending Fossil Fuel Subsidies: the politics of saving the planet”

Ending Fossil Fuel Subsidies: the politics of saving the planet

January 17, 2023
Neil McCulloch introduces his new book Hands up if you would like petrol prices to go up?  I’m guessing not too many hands.  The cripplingly high costs of energy (whether petrol, diesel, gas or coal as well as electricity) have posed a huge challenge for households and firms all around the world.  Massive increases in these costs, driven by the
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Featured image for “Taxation of the World’s Super-Rich has collapsed: as 1 in 8 people go to bed hungry, that has to change”

Taxation of the World’s Super-Rich has collapsed: as 1 in 8 people go to bed hungry, that has to change

January 16, 2023
Max Lawson introduces Oxfam’s 2023 Davos report, ‘Survival of the Richest: How we must tax the super-rich now to fight inequality’ Walter is the father of my son’s best friend at school. He works nights as a security guard at a bank in the City of London. He has three kids. They are really struggling, as the prices of everything
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Featured image for “Development Nutshell: round-up (24m) of FP2P posts, w/b 9th January”

Development Nutshell: round-up (24m) of FP2P posts, w/b 9th January

January 14, 2023
No excerpt
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Featured image for “What do LSE Activism Students do after they leave?”

What do LSE Activism Students do after they leave?

January 13, 2023
Teaching is weird. You engage on quite an intense level with each year’s cohort of students, and then they fly the nest, and you hear very little about what happens next. Still less whether their studies actually helped (I’m still trying to work out whether my Physics degree has been a help or hindrance in grappling with the complexities of
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How well does the IMF engage with civil society?

January 12, 2023
Oxfam has a new paper out this week on how the IMF engages with civil society around the world. A bit process-y, I know, but this is good – based on a lot of serious case studies and coming up with the odd surprise (notably Ghana, highlighted below). My summary of the summary: ‘The International Monetary Fund (IMF or ‘the
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Featured image for “Humanitarians Must Reject the Taliban’s Misogyny”

Humanitarians Must Reject the Taliban’s Misogyny

January 10, 2023
Guest Post from Hugo Slim, Senior Research Fellow at the Las Casas Institute for Social Justice at Blackfriars Hall, University of Oxford ‘Once again, humanitarians are bogged down in a moral predicament in Afghanistan. The extreme misogyny of Taliban policy is back and international humanitarian agencies should refuse to cooperate with it. The Taliban’s initial tolerance of gender equality in
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Featured image for “Links I Liked”

Links I Liked

January 10, 2023
Everyone ready? Ht Bryan Dawe Remembering Martin Ravallion, superstar analyst of poverty and inequality, who died just before Christmas. Memories and plaudits from his World Bank colleagues. In Effort to ‘Move the Needle,’ UN Chief Announces Special Summit on Climate Crisis ht Saleemul Huq Excellent overview of humanitarian policy issues: ‘What’s on our aid policy radar in 2023?’ The “deep
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