At the start of our Evidence for Influencing conference in October, Senior Researcher Martin Walsh presented Oxfam’s research on the politics of populism and its implications for NGO policy and practice, including the use of evidence for influencing. Here he summarises and reflects on the findings of that research, published at the end of last year as an Oxfam America Research …
Critical junctures and the redistribution of care work
Women’s heavy and unequal contributions to care work are a challenge to their participation in social, economic and political life and overall wellbeing. How can project interventions change this? Senior researcher Martin Walsh reflects on the findings of two in-depth studies in Uganda and Ethiopia. One of the aims of Oxfam’s WE-Care (Women’s Economic Empowerment and Care) initiative is the …
Love in the drylands, how irrigation is changing lives in Zimbabwe
Climate change is placing increasing stress upon the livelihoods of people living in the world’s drylands. Smallholder irrigation can help improve food security in areas with unpredictable rainfall. Here Senior Researcher Martin Walsh discusses the findings from an evaluation of an Oxfam-supported irrigation scheme in Zimbabwe. Reports about irrigation schemes are typically quite dry compendia of facts and figures about intakes …
Introducing our new case studies of Oxfam’s research in practice
High quality research is an integral part of evidence-informed advocacy and development programming. Here Martin Walsh, Global Research Adviser, introduces our new series of case studies, starting with one about the research behind Oxfam’s most talked-about killer fact, and another discussing a methodologically challenging impact evaluation in Pakistan. ollowing the success of our online research guidelines, we’re launching a new …
Our latest research guidelines for development practitioners
LEARNING: High quality research is an integral part of evidence-informed advocacy and development programming. Here Martin Walsh, Global Research Adviser, introduces our latest research guidelines, two of them on new topics and one an update to an existing guideline. Oxfam launched its series of online research guidelines for development practitioners in November 2012. Since then, they’ve become among the most …