What’s New in the Private Education Pandora’s Box? A look at developments in the Global South

April 23, 2019
Guest post from Prachi Srivastava, Associate Professor, University of Western Ontario. The Economist’s new special report ‘Private education’ (print edition, 13 April 2019) is causing a stir. We’ve been here before. Nearly four years ago, The Economist did a cover story (‘The $1-a-week school’) and briefing (‘Learning unleashed’) on low-fee private schooling (print edition, 1 August 2015) which caused a similar controversy. Then
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What to do about Inequality, Shrinking Wages and the perils of PPPs? A conversation with Kaushik Basu, World Bank chief economist

March 10, 2015
Along with a bunch of policy wonks from NGOs and thinktanks, I had an exchange with World Bank chief economist Kaushik Basu this week. Rules of engagement were that the meeting  was off the record, but I was allowed to blog as long as the Bank saw a draft to make sure I wasn’t about to get him the sack.
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Are developing countries heading for another debt crisis? And if so, what is anyone doing about it?

February 5, 2015
Skating on thin ice is an occupational hazard in my job, but it was really cracking underfoot at a recent Chatham House Rules roundtable on ‘debt crisis prevention in developing countries’. The only way to survive is to stay quiet, nod and look thoughtful when people refer to completely unintelligible things like ‘the clarification of pari passu, which created difficulties
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Not so mega? The risky business of large-scale public-private partnerships in African agriculture

September 16, 2014
Oxfam policy adviser Robin Willoughby shrugs off the big ag groupthink and argues that the current trend of mega projects in African agriculture is a risky and unproven way to help poor farmers. Last week, I attended a large summit on the future of African agriculture in Addis Ababa, hosted by A Green Revolution for Africa (AGRA). My participation really
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