Topic: Technology

Guest post by Ken Shadlen of the LSE The Covid-19 pandemic has sparked a global race of public- and private-led research to develop vaccines and treatments. Will patents hinder access to the products it generates? My summary? With regard to treatments (the dynamics around vaccines may differ), access problems will mainly affect middle-income countries. While […]

Guest post by Gopa Thampi and Nicola Nixon of The Asia Foundation Why is the much-heralded promise of the data revolution not accelerating development in the way we expected? Why is the incredibly rapid rise of new data sources and methods of analysis paradoxically out of sync with its broader social impacts? No easy answers, […]

Guest post by Dr. Claire Melamed, CEO of the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data. Most of the time data is a boring backdrop to the real stuff that people care about: will my child get into university with those grades? Which party is likely to win at the next election? Who will win the […]

This blog’s #PowerShifts project is now on Instagram Debt crisis update: The Economist’s table of 4 risk factors in 66 developing countries. Highest combined risk = Venezuela, Lebanon, Zambia, Bahrain, Angola. The Economic Impact of COVID-19 around the World. Excellent round up of the latest analysis from David Evans (aka the Great Summarizer) and Amina Mendez Acosta […]

Guest post by Vanita Suneja of WaterAid Covid-19 is currently   occupying our collective mind space.  Apart from avoiding mass gatherings, the foremost message given through public media and health advisories across the world is on hand hygiene. We are being been advised to clean our hands regularly and thoroughly with soap and water or with […]

If you were to buy just one issue of The Economist a year, the edition just before International Women’s Day is usually a good bet. Even though it seldom mentions IWD directly, the issue usually sneaks in some fascinating gender-based pieces (eg this 2017 article on gender budgeting). This year it ran pieces on femicide […]

I sat down recently with Saleemul Huq, a scientist and activist who has attended every single global negotiation on climate change since 1992. Saleem is Director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development (ICCCAD) in Bangladesh and Senior Fellow at the International Institute for Environment & Development (IIED) in London. We discussed the […]

This reflection is offered by Ibrahim Jarso, Rangelands Specialist at MercyCorps, Hausner Wendo, Climate Information & Resilience Planning Officer at the Adaptation Consortium and Sam Greene, Researcher on Climate Change at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). Isiolo County in northern Kenya’s arid and semi-arid region is typical of many dryland landscapes. Pastoralists […]

Please take the reader survey – FP2P is changing fast and we need your feedback and advice – two minutes, honest! Guest post from Ange Moray, David Ney and Nicola Nixon, of The Asia Foundation A central conundrum in the digital age is that the potential for technological solutions to fast-track social and economic development is […]