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

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

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

As well as the headlines, First Edition, the Guardian’s excellent daily news summary (free subscription here), includes an in-depth conversation between the editor and one of its specialist journalists. Yesterday’s, with environment correspondent Damien Gayle, was on ‘Extinction Rebellion’s New Year’s Day statement, which led with the headline-grabbing phrase “we quit”’. Not true, apparently. Here’s the Guardian’s analysis: ‘This is

Guest post from Laura Adams, Director of Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Learning at CSM-STAND, a USAID-funded global civil society and media program, led by Pact. When international development programs want people to get vaccinated, the behavior they are targeting is clear, even if the complex set of things that influence that behavior take time and effort to address. Social and

Spoke about the future of aid to an enquiry by Foreign Affairs Policy Committee of the Conservative Party 1922 Committee last week (apologies for too many committees in one sentence – that’s parliament for you). I was intrigued because I didn’t know the 1922 did this sort of thing – all you ever see of them on the news is

Spent a fascinating hour this week shooting the breeze with Nikolai Hegertun and Petter Skjæveland from Norad, the Norwegian aid agency. They’d got in touch to discuss some of the obstacles and challenges they face, look for ideas from elsewhere that might work for them etc etc – I love this kind of conversation. Some highlights: Aid v Global Public

Oxfam GB’s Danny Sriskandarajah  assesses words v deeds in Rishi Sunak’s performance on the climate crisis After initially dithering on whether to attend the COP27 climate summit this week, Prime Minister Sunak seems to have packed his Climate Superhero costume for his trip to Sharm-El-Sheikh. His speech was not short of promises – to turn the UK into a ‘clean energy

I’m off to Papua New Guinea in a couple of weeks in the role of ‘critical friend’ (more on that weird job description in due course) to a big Aussie-funded aid program (the A$87m Building Community Engagement in PNG Program) run by DT Global (as Cardno is now called). They’ve just published an excellent guidance note on Adaptive Management, written

Gave a ‘Sussex Development Lecture’ last week. The title (with apologies to John Lennon): ‘Imagine there‘s no Money; It‘s easy if you try‘. Here’s the powerpoint – feel free to nick the slides. Some points from what I learned both from writing the lecture and the Q&A: Firstly, on aid quantity, I have been trapped in a bit of a

Great, pull-no-punches twitter thread from Stefan Dercon in response to the new UK Government’s decision to appoint Andrew Mitchell as Minister for Development (still within the merged FCDO though). Here’s an edited version, with his permission. Welcome Mr Mitchell, but you have your work cut out. All eyes will be on the budgets. They are in an absolute mess. A

Spoke on a panel last week in UCL’s Policy and Practice lecture series. The topic was Nina Hall’s new book, Transnational Advocacy in the Digital Era (putting in the discount code ASFLYQ6 will get you 30% off, btw). Some thoughts. The book explores a new-ish generation of digital advocacy organizations with professional staff. MoveOn was the first, established in the