When you’re dictating the live BBC blog on the Tory party conference and someone takes your breakfast order…
Two excellent pieces from the New Humanitarian
Aid agencies and politicians need to understand the political economy of camps for internally displaced people before sounding off about aid diversion. ‘Aid theft in Somalia is not what you think‘
‘Like all ruling classes, its members did not think they were a ruling class.’ Branko Milanovic clearly hasn’t spent much time in the UK… Lovely piece though, as ever, on growing up in Yugoslavia, featuring ‘the red bourgeoisie’
‘Everybody’s hiding their skeletons’: A gloves-off conversation on aid diversion and double standards
New season of LSE ‘Cutting Edge Issues’ kicked off with Dirk Jan Koch and Claire Short discussing the unintended consequences of aid (the subject of Dirk’s new book)
If you’re suffering from climate grief/pessimism, have a listen to this TED talk (I didn’t even know they were still a thing) from data scientist Hanna Ritchie. Dr Pangloss or a necessary narrative shift?
one for your collection…it’s by the dutch gvmt but you could easily slap uk, eu, us on it…
we’re failing to make a meaningful change and as a result of it, money will go on dealing with consequences of fragility in donor countries rather than making fragile states more stabile.
https://english.iob-evaluatie.nl/results/publications/reports/2023/08/28/dutch-contribution-to-stability-in-fragile-contexts