Few people have a good word to say for the British government these days, few British voters anyway. But I like not to follow the crowd. And on international development, they have got something worthwhile going on. There are signs of a real rethink that has a chance of paving the way to making overseas aid more effective. Continue reading
fragile states
Companies and conflict sensitivity in the recession
It’s a truism that the poor get the hardest by any economic problem, downturn, crunch or crisis. Likewise, the poor get left behind when the economic good times are rolling. It’s perhaps a faint hope, but might it be possible for those truisms to be at least a little less true for poor countries during this crisis and as recovery comes around? Continue reading
Climate change, conflict and development – under discussion
This is a key year for climate change policy, leading up to the summit in Copenhagen in December, which has the task of coming up with the “post-Kyoto” climate agreement. With the obscurantism of Bush replaced by the energy and commitment of the still new Obama administration, hopes are high though obstacles are many. As part of its preparations for the year ahead, on Thursday 12th the UK Foreign Office held a workshop at London School of Economics on climate security. Continue reading
Poverty, power, development and aid under discussion
The UK Department for International Development (DFID) is preparing a White Paper. It will be its fourth one since the department was founded in 1997 in the early days of New Labour government. On Monday 9th and Tuesday 10th it held a conference in London as part of the work on the White Paper.
Overstretch in UN peace operations
“In 2008 global peacekeeping was pushed to the brink,” says a new briefing paper from the Center on International Cooperation in New York announcing the Annual Review of Global Peace Operations 2009. The authors chart out the basic peacekeeping figures – who contributes what peacekeeping forces where – but their main focus is on the serious degree of overstretch and the risk of operations breaking down. Continue reading
The food fulcrum
A billion are underfed and a billion are overweight. People, that is. Publication of an excellent report on food security by Alex Evans, The Feeding of the Nine Billion, offers an occasion for reflecting on how food sits at the fulcrum of many of the outstanding concerns of today – climate change and conflict, poverty and wealth, deprivation and privilege, power and exclusion. Continue reading
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