As Oxfam launches its latest index that rates countries’ commitment to reducing inequality, Anthony Kamande reflects on how poor policy choices impacted his own family in Kenya, points out how ordinary people have lost out amid the pandemic and inflation, and highlights a few governments showing the way forward
Refugees want a real say in decisions shaping their lives: here’s how that could happen…
Anila Noor on what refugee-led organisations are looking for in the run-up to next year’s crucial Global Refugee Forum – and top of the list is enough seats at the table
Gambling on development: why I’m (mostly) convinced by Stefan Dercon’s big idea
Duncan Green reviews a provocative new book, which argues that countries’ economic progress depends on a ‘bargain’ struck by the elite to push for growth and development
Fighting for invisible women in Kenya: a story and podcast of an extraordinary changemaker in the pandemic
“I am a reflection of how a widow can thrive. I am a reflection of how widows can remain invisible…” Roseline Orwa, advocate for Kenyan widows, is star of the first episode of a new podcast series telling four stories of changemakers in a time of Covid. Oxfam’s Filippo Artuso and the LSE’s Barbara van Paassen tell us more about the series – and the research that informs it
The messy realities of governance in conflict-affected areas: six dilemmas for development practice
Development projects too often assume there is a simple structure of local governance. But innovative research based on people in Mozambique, Myanmar, and Pakistan writing diaries reveals how in fact their lives are governed by many competing informal and formal actors. Katrina Barnes of Oxfam and Colin Anderson of the Institute of Development Studies on key dilemmas this complexity raises for practitioners
‘None of us expected such a jump in wealth…’ The inside story of how Oxfam’s analysts counted the billions
If the ten richest men sat on their wealth in dollar bills, they would be halfway to the moon – but how do you work that out? In another blog for Davos week, Alex Maitland tells us how the Oxfam team came up with some of our mind-blowing wealth stats
Four ways that inequality kills
Oxfam’s Dana Abed on the four great global injustices behind our Davos report headline that inequality contributes to one death every four seconds
Evolving ICTs in humanitarian: The power of networks
Amy O’Donnell unpacks the idea that ICTs save time, money and improve accuracy, whilst exploring the conditions needed for them to add value in humanitarian response. For three years, the Scaling Humanitarian ICTs Network (SHINE) funded by Sida has been exploring the role of Information Communications Technologies in humanitarian response. Last month all five countries in the network: Ethiopia, DRC, …
Research-into-Use for climate change adaptation
Sue Moore explains the use of Research-into-Use and explores what this means for researchers, practitioners and ultimately, those most vulnerable to the effects of climate change. ‘We want water, not research!’ exclaimed a woman attending a stakeholder engagement workshop in Southern Afar, Ethiopia in February 2016. Why indeed focus on research, when the immediate needs of much of the population …
Capitalising on research and translating it into action
Nina Gora, Gender lead at Oxfam in Greece, shares approaches for meaningful research dissemination that helps to reduce duplication and leads to collective action. he majority of humanitarian and development proposals and subsequent programmes contain a research or assessment component. Whether intended to better understand the context, the communities with which we work or the approaches we have tried, or …