From Poverty to Power

This Week in Africa: an amazing weekly links round-up

Duncan Green - October 21, 2017

If you’re interested in more or less anything to do with Africa, check out ‘The Week in Africa’, an extraordinarily comprehensive round up of links by weekly email, put together by Jeff (American) and Phil (Zimbabwean) and hosted by the University of San Francicso. Sign up here. Here’s this week’s bulletin: QUOTE OF THE WEEK “We have never seen such devastation. Not even in our …

What did I learn from a day with the UN’s bloggers?

Duncan Green - October 20, 2017

Had a fun day earlier this week running a blogging workshop for Unicef researchers in their wonderful centre in Florence (I know, tough gig etc). I ran through what is rapidly becoming my standard powerpoint (here you go, feel free to steal or comment), but the most interesting (and exhausting) session was working through nine draft blogs with their authors in a group: it was …

Empowerment and Accountability in Messy Places: what’s the latest?

Duncan Green - October 19, 2017

Spent a fascinating two days at IDS last week taking stock of year one of a 5 year research programme: Action for Empowerment and Accountability (A4EA). The aim is to understand how social and political action takes place in ‘Fragile, Conflict, Violence Affected Settings’ (FCVS) and the implications for ‘external actors’ (donors, INGOs etc, but the term always makes me think of Hollywood). The research …

The World Bank’s 2018 World Development Report on Education: a sceptic’s review

Duncan Green - October 18, 2017

Guest post from Prachi Srivastava (@PrachiSrivas), Associate Professor in the area of education and international development at the University of Western Ontario. When the World Bank announced that the 2018 World Development Report (WDR) would be on education, I was sceptical. I’m not denying the Bank’s research expertise. It devotes substantial money and staff and has a trove of reports that are accessible in the …

General

Links I Liked

Duncan Green - October 17, 2017

Sooner or later every US president warrants a map (here’s Ronald Reagan’s). Nambia swung it for Trump, but I’ve got a feeling that he’ll be adding to this over the next few years. ht Alan Hirsch How going to the movies helped Ugandan high schoolers pass their tests. This study is rapidly becoming an iconic piece of research on shifting norms/behaviours through popular culture. Taming Big Tobacco’s …

It’s World Food Day today – why is global progress going into reverse?

Duncan Green - October 16, 2017

Guest post from Larissa Pelham, who is a food security wonk with probably the longest job title in Oxfam (see end for its full glory) World Food Day has come around again and with it the annual report on the State of World Food Insecurity. In a year which declared a potential ‘four famines’ – with South Sudan tipping into famine in March, it is …

Can INGOs push back against closing civic space? Only if they change their approach.

Duncan Green - October 13, 2017

Guest post from Dhananjayan Sriskandarajah, Secretary General of CIVICUS. He can be found on social media@civicussg Civil society is facing a sustained, multi-faceted, global onslaught. According to the CIVICUS Monitor, fundamental civic freedoms are being severely restricted in an unprecedented number of countries. The operating environment for civil society organisations is becoming more hostile across the world and many of us in the organised bits of …

Achilles v Ulysses and Complexity, according to the OECD

Duncan Green - October 12, 2017

Just been browsing a new OECD book on what complexity and systems thinking mean for policy-making. It consists of ‘a compilation of contributions from a series of seminars and workshops on complexity issues over the past two years. It reflects the combined wisdom and perspectives of an internal and external network of researchers, academics and policymakers.’ The pieces are short (couple of pages each) and come …

Hugo Slim sets me straight on the state of humanitarianism

Duncan Green - October 11, 2017

I wrote a gloomy piece on the state of humanitarianism recently, and got put straight by some excellent comments from Ed Cairns, Paul Harvey and others. Here’s a particularly erudite rebuttal from humanitarian guru Hugo Slim, who (among other things) is Head of Policy at the International Committee of the Red Cross. (I’ve added a few links): Welcome to our world, Duncan. I’m glad you …

Want to ensure your research influences policy? Top advice from a Foreign Office insider.

Duncan Green - October 10, 2017

The conference on ‘Protracted Conflict, Aid and Development’ that I wrote about on Friday was funded by the Global Challenges Research Fund, a massive (£1.5bn) UK research programme that is funding, among other things, the LSE’s new Centre for Public Authority and International Development, where I’ll be putting in a day a week over the next few years. Not surprising, therefore, that the topic of …