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Where is the power in the pandemic?

May 21, 2020
I’ve got some important news for you today. Throughout the upcoming weeks and months, Power Shifts is partnering with the Oxfam in Depth podcast to share the experiences of people living through the Coronavirus outbreak in our new Power in the Pandemic podcast. We’ll be hearing from people across the world as they tell us how COVID-19 is affecting their lives
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How can we improve the way we move from analysing power to designing change strategies?

July 11, 2019
One of the most productive conversations in my recent trip to Bolivia was a discussion with Oxfam Bolivia staff on the shortcomings of my/our current thinking about how to move from analysing power to designing strategies to bring about change. The current advice is to start with a power analysis, then move to mapping the relevant stakeholders, and on the
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Which aspects of How Change Happens resonate with campaigners?

July 12, 2017
Writing, and then promoting, How Change Happens has often left me feeling a bit remote from ‘the field’, with a nagging anxiety that what I am saying no longer has much connection with what people are doing on (or at least closer to) the ground. So it was great to get online with some of Oxfam’s best and brightest campaigners
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What makes a perfect short field trip (and a top village power analysis)?

February 7, 2014
I had a pretty perfect one-week field trip to Tajikistan last week. Two days down in the South, talking to villagers, activists, officials, and our own local staff about the hardware part of our Tajikistan Water and Sanitation (TajWSS) project – working with local government to install water systems under their ownership and local Water User Association control. (I’ve already blogged
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What is a theory of change and how do we use it?

August 13, 2013
I’m planning to write a paper on this, but thought I’d kick off with a blog and pick your brains for references, suggestions etc. Everyone these days (funders, bosses etc) seems to be demanding a Theory of Change (ToC), although when challenged, many have only the haziest notion of what they mean by it. It’s a great opportunity, but also
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What questions help us understand how change happens?

April 8, 2013
How do we analyse the stories of change that we all use in development? Such stories shape narratives, illustrate approaches and enrich our understanding of how change happens. Regular readers of this blog will know that this is a running theme, but I’m now about to step it up, working with colleagues across Oxfam and beyond to collect and use
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Power and change – how do they fit in development work?

November 28, 2011
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Who’s better at preparing tomorrow’s campaigners: LSE or Harvard?

May 27, 2010
Enough about aid, let’s talk about campaigning. By pure coincidence, I’ve been spending time with a bunch of Master in Public Adminstration (MPA) students recently – fascinating, not least because of the different approaches taken by their courses. Last week, the winning team from this year’s crop at the London School of Economics came in to pitch us their idea
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