All the current furore about the doings of US Secret Service agents is likely to cause a few chuckles among their sister services in other countries, who tend...
Alex Evans
Alex Evans is founder of Larger Us, which explores how we can use psychology to reduce political tribalism and polarisation, a senior fellow at New York University, and author of The Myth Gap: What Happens When Evidence and Arguments Aren’t Enough? (Penguin, 2017).
He is a former Campaign Director of the 50 million member global citizen’s movement Avaaz, special adviser to two UK Cabinet Ministers, climate expert in the UN Secretary-General’s office, and was Research Director for the Business Commission on Sustainable Development.
Alex lives with his wife and two children in Yorkshire.
Beyond the MDGs – our new Brookings Institution paper
In posts over the last couple of weeks, David and I have been previewing some of the ideas set out in a paper we did for the Brookings Institution in advance...
Beyond the Millennium Development Goals
Debate on what should follow the Millennium Development Goals after 2015 is now underway in earnest. This briefing paper by Alex Evans and David Steven, prepared for a closed session Brookings Institution meeting organised at the request of the US government, sets out an overview of the MDGs and their expected status in 2015; describes the background to, and options for, a post-2015 framework; and discusses the political challenges of agreeing a new framework and sets out considerations for governments and other stakeholders.
Repatriated – and gagged with packing tape
That's a snap from Alitalia's 0920 Rome to Tunis flight yesterday morning, taken by Francesco Sperandeo and posted on his Facebook page. He comments, Two...
Why I love the New Yorker
Via Michael Anderson. More New Yorker cartoons here.
The most heavily aided place in the world
Ever wondered where gets most Official Development Assistance per capita in the world? Have a guess. Somewhere in sub-Saharan Africa? Nope. The Occupied...
Who should be on the post-2015 Panel?
And now for the fun part of thinking about the UN's forthcoming High Level Panel on the post-2015 agenda: who should feature on its membership? As well as...
What sort of High Level Panel?
To be effective, the new High Level Panel on the post-2015 agenda needs to be clear about what it wants to be remembered for. Here are the six basic options that international commissions have open to them when they sit down to consider that question…
After the MDGs: what kind of goals?
The five key questions that will shape the development and sustainability agenda after 2015 – and the different outcomes that the answers to them lead to.
Geography fail
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David Cameron to chair new UN Panel on what happens after the MDGs
News in the Guardian today: David Cameron has been asked by the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, to chair a new UN committee tasked with establishing a new...
The 10 countries most likely to default on their sovereign debt
New data out yesterday from Markit, the gurus of credit default swap data: H/t Business Insider.
Great NGO moments, part 394
A particularly special moment in NGO campaigns strategy yesterday, for connoisseurs of the genre: Jubilee Debt Campaign arguing that Britain should forgive...
Here we go again: cost of Africa’s oil imports > Africa’s aid (updated)
Back in 2010, when I wrote Globalisation and Scarcity (pdf), one of the stats cited in the report that seemed to kindle most interest was the International...
Friday reality check
Great quote from the Economist's Democracy in America blog, back in December: A hundred years from now, looking back, the only question that will appear...
What does the Security Council think about Ethiopia / Eritrea?
With Ethiopia having launched an attack on camps inside Eritrea last week, and apparently another over the weekend (though the Ethiopian government denies...
What it’s like to work in international development
By Ahmed El Mezeny at Save the Children in Egypt, via Facebook. Outstanding.
Biggest solar storm since 2005 underway
The Sun is up to all sorts of interesting things this week, with unusually high sunspot activity leading to a series of solar flares (or coronal mass...
The unsustainability of sustainable development
From XKCD, via Tim Harford.
Should we have Sustainable Development Goals as well as (or indeed instead of) MDGs?
Later today in New York, a 2 day meeting on the idea of 'Sustainable Development Goals' will begin, bringing together numerous countries' Permanent...
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Freedom and Justice Week – “tell me how we change”
This article is part of our Freedom and Justice Week series - as Global Dashboard provides a platform for a diversity of voices to explore how we respond to the wave of protests that followed the murder of George Floyd. Read all the articles in the series here....
Scenarios Week Round-Up
Last month, we launch the #LongCrisisScenarios in partnership with the Local Trust. The four scenarios describe COVID-19 futures where the response is polarised or where collective action predominates, and where decision-making is centralised or distributed. For the...