Featured image for “Data-driven problem solving in Myanmar: Working politically with technology”

Data-driven problem solving in Myanmar: Working politically with technology

December 17, 2019
Please take the reader survey – FP2P is changing fast and we need your feedback and advice – two minutes, honest! Guest post from Ange Moray, David Ney and Nicola Nixon, of The Asia Foundation A central conundrum in the digital age is that the potential for technological solutions to fast-track social and economic development is simultaneously under-estimated and overstated. We’ve
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Featured image for “Book Review: Branko Milanovic, Capitalism, Alone: The Future of the System that Rules the World”

Book Review: Branko Milanovic, Capitalism, Alone: The Future of the System that Rules the World

November 15, 2019
I wrote this before interviewing Branko for yesterday’s podcast, but thought I’d put it up anyway as a companion piece Full disclosure, I am a huge fan of Branko Milanovic, both because of his brilliant analysis of inequality (think Elephant Graph), but also because of his style – a formidable old-school Serbian public intellectual, never happier than when browsing St
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Featured image for “In the Global South, the Digital Revolution is not just about the tech: it’s about the politics”

In the Global South, the Digital Revolution is not just about the tech: it’s about the politics

November 13, 2019
Elizabeth Stuart is Executive Director of the Pathways for Prosperity Commission, which released its final report, The Digital Roadmap, today. Digital technology is sometimes portrayed as a painless shortcut to development, a technical fix to reduce poverty. The Pathways Commission disagrees: getting the small p politics right is a crucial part of successful digitisation. Our commissioners know a thing or
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Featured image for “DIY Blog Training kit – Please Steal”

DIY Blog Training kit – Please Steal

October 30, 2019
I’ve been doing a fair amount of blog training recently, whether for students, academics, NGOs or other aid agencies. It’s fun but quite time consuming, and I recently realized (not for the first time), that I’m actually pretty redundant. If I post the slides (below) and some suggestions for structure, pretty much anyone can run a training session. Job done.
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Will Open Access disrupt Books even more than Journals?

October 25, 2019
Open Access (OA) week is drawing to a close, so I thought I’d take a look at the stats for How Change Happens, published three years ago this week. They were pretty mind blowing, at least for an author. HCH was published by Oxford University Press and has been OA since day 1 – you can download the pdf for
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Featured image for “Two new Manuals for Activists, with some useful lessons”

Two new Manuals for Activists, with some useful lessons

August 13, 2019
I’ve been taking advantage of the summer lull to skim some of the backlog of tomes that have accumulated on my study floor. Some were so bad and/or obscure that they really don’t deserve a mention, but two on activism got my attention. First up, Be the Change by Gina Martin. Full disclosure, I bought this by mistake, mixing up
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Featured image for “Patent rules are still stopping us helping our children, and this time it’s personal”

Patent rules are still stopping us helping our children, and this time it’s personal

August 6, 2019
I arrived at Oxfam towards the end of its big Make Trade Fair campaign on global trade rules. One of its core figures was Romain Benicchio, who just got in touch with this piece about how one aspect of that campaign has become all-too personal. One of the major illustrations of the rigged rules and double standards that shaped (and
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Featured image for “How to vlog – top examples and advice from some very tech savvy students”

How to vlog – top examples and advice from some very tech savvy students

August 2, 2019
Final instalment from my amazing LSE students. Wednesday and Thursday’s posts ran some of their blogs, which were part of their assignment to write an influencing strategy on a topic of their choice. But I gave them the option of doing a video blog (vlog) instead, and several of them grabbed it, with some impressive results. Here are three of
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Book Review: The Business of Changing the World, by Raj Kumar

June 18, 2019
I found reading The Business of Changing the World rather disturbing – a bit like being taken hostage by a cult and submitted to polite but persistent brainwashing for several days (I’m a slow reader). The cult in question is what Anand Giridharadas calls ‘MarketWorld’ – an effusive, evangelical belief in the power of markets, data and new tech to
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Maps in Court: how the Waorani are upholding their rights in Ecuador

June 12, 2019
Aliya Ryan is an anthropologist working with Digital Democracy on their Ecuador programme to support the Waorani and Siekopai territory mapping projects.  Last month the Waorani hit the headlines due to a landmark win against the Ecuadorian Government. Sixteen Waorani communities contested the supposed consultation that the government carried out in 2012 before putting millions of hectares of rainforest up
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Can digital really revolutionise health and education in the Global South?

May 30, 2019
Guest post from Elizabeth Stuart, executive director of the  Pathways for Prosperity Commission on Technology and Inclusive Development. One of many puzzles in development is that increasing spending on health and education doesn’t necessarily deliver expected results. To turn this on its head: Madagascar, Bangladesh and South Africa all have similar child mortality rates, but South Africa spends 19 times
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Big demographic tides are sweeping the world: how should aid organizations respond?

May 24, 2019
Recently I spent half day BS’ing (breeze-shooting, obviously) about future trends and challenges for international organizations like Oxfam. Confession: we’re supposed to hate these, but often they’re really fun. A table on demographic shifts got me particularly excited. Great human tides are sloshing around the globe, populations are moving geographically, and their age make-up is changing rapidly. All that has
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