Featured image for “How the United Nations and the World Bank can turbo charge the effort to reduce Inequality”

How the United Nations and the World Bank can turbo charge the effort to reduce Inequality

July 26, 2023
Guest post from Oxfam’s Anthony Kamande Over the past decade, many leading economists and global institutions such as the United Nations (UN), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank have taken a keen interest in economic inequality. Tons of inequality data have been unearthed, and inequality is now on ordinary people’s lips. Indeed, in 2015 the UN adopted
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Featured image for “School children are bearing the brunt of the global hunger crisis – just feed them.”

School children are bearing the brunt of the global hunger crisis – just feed them.

July 24, 2023
Kevin Watkins introduces a new paper on a crucial topic Governments will this week gather in Rome for a UN event with one of those titles designed to induce profound boredom. The FAO is marking the second anniversary of the 2021 World Food System Summit with a ‘Stocktaking Moment’. Yes, I know, those two words feel like a good enough
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Links I Liked

July 24, 2023
Twitter seems v tired/evil right now, so I have started an FP2P LinkedIn page. Not quite sure what I’ll do with it yet, apart from link to new FP2P posts. All suggestions welcome (plus please follow!). A new league table analyses the disclosure and performance of 60 of the world’s largest global food and beverage companies on their efforts to
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Featured image for “Development Nutshell podcast. 28m roundup of posts for w/b 10th and 17th July”

Development Nutshell podcast. 28m roundup of posts for w/b 10th and 17th July

July 22, 2023
Links I Liked The methodology behind Oxfam’s latest killer fact on companies $1 trillion in windfall profits Some good news on falling global poverty levels (the multi-dimensional kind) Devoted the last week’s posts to a new book, How to Engage Policy Makers with your Research: The Art of Informing and Impacting Policy. Lot of stuff to chew on in here, for those of us
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Featured image for “The Role of ‘Critical Friends’ in Research and Aid Programmes”

The Role of ‘Critical Friends’ in Research and Aid Programmes

July 20, 2023
One particular chapter in How to Engage Policy Makers with your Research felt particularly relevant to me. For some years, I have been working with Exfamer Jane Lonsdale, in Tanzania, Myanmar and now in Papua New Guinea (PNG), where she helps run a big Aussie-funded programme on citizen engagement. I support Jane and the teams she works with by commenting
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Featured image for “How Can Researchers Support the Policy Shift to Sustainability?”

How Can Researchers Support the Policy Shift to Sustainability?

July 19, 2023
My favourite chapter in How to Engage Policy Makers with your Research (in addition to the one on Critical Friends which goes up tomorrow) was by Alice Owen, a prof at Leeds university, on ‘Supporting policy towards sustainability’. It’s a lovely reflection from a senior academic on the lessons she has learned in engaging with policy makers over the years.
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How to Engage Policy Makers with your Research: The Art of Informing and Impacting Policy. Book Review to kick off Research for Impact week on FP2P

July 18, 2023
Edited by a bunch of UK academics (Oxford Brookes and Manchester), this book is a gold mine for anyone interested in research for impact (R4I) – the holy grail (at least in terms of lip service) of much of modern academia. Best thing I’ve read on the subject, with something for more or less everyone, so I’m going to devote
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Featured image for “Want to hear some Good News? Global Poverty is falling (kind of).”

Want to hear some Good News? Global Poverty is falling (kind of).

July 13, 2023
The annual Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) report, jointly published since 2010 by the United Nations Development Programme and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI), came out this week. The 2010 bit is important – the MPI has now been going long enough to start to identify trends in the nature of more nuanced, holistic (poverty plus) deprivation
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Featured image for “Showing Your Working when you come up with a ‘Killer Fact’”

Showing Your Working when you come up with a ‘Killer Fact’

July 12, 2023
Oxfam got some headlines last week with ‘World’s 722 biggest companies ‘making $1tn in windfall profits’’. This is a good example of a ‘killer fact’ – a memorable statistic that summarizes an injustice, in this case a massive windfall for big corporates at a time of global austerity and spiralling food and fuel prices. Here’s my 2019 guide to writing
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Links I Liked

July 11, 2023
It’s getting harder to squeeze much fun or value out of twitter these days, but here’s a few recent links – please send me good stuff to make up for the meltdown! Bilateral aid budgets reached a record high of USD 204 billion in 2022 despite sluggish economic conditions in donor countries. The increase was driven mainly by support to
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Featured image for “Development Nutshell, bumper edition (34m podcast). Audio roundup of June/July blogs on From Poverty to Power”

Development Nutshell, bumper edition (34m podcast). Audio roundup of June/July blogs on From Poverty to Power

July 8, 2023
Fixing the power imbalances of aid and development: A paradox Is it right to prioritise fragile states in the climate crisis? Book Review: How to Stand Up to a Dictator, by Maria Ressa Where has the Humanitarian Sector got to on Localization? Great new update From Penury to Prosperity. The Churches at the Epicentre of social-economic Transformation I’m doing a new edition of How Change Happens – any
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Leadership Tips from Someone Who Knows

July 7, 2023
Just got back from Dakar, and a great few days with the latest cohort of leaders from UN, INGOs and Red Cross/Red Crescent, all coming together in our GELI programme on influencing and advocacy, learning from each other (and occasionally from the LSE team). On top of the busy working day schedule, we invited along Elhadj As Sy (right) to
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