In a brave move, the Overseas Development Institute – which bills itself as the UK’s leading international development think tank – has called for George...
David Steven
David Steven is a senior fellow at the UN Foundation and at New York University, where he founded the Global Partnership to End Violence against Children and the Pathfinders for Peaceful, Just and Inclusive Societies, a multi-stakeholder partnership to deliver the SDG targets for preventing all forms of violence, strengthening governance, and promoting justice and inclusion. He was lead author for the ministerial Task Force on Justice for All and senior external adviser for the UN-World Bank flagship study on prevention, Pathways for Peace. He is a former senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and co-author of The Risk Pivot: Great Powers, International Security, and the Energy Revolution (Brookings Institution Press, 2014). In 2001, he helped develop and launch the UK’s network of climate diplomats. David lives in and works from Pisa, Italy.
More on the worst corporate scandal you’ve never heard of
A month ago, I posted on the Ranbaxy drug scandal - a shocking tale of systematic fraud by one of the world's leading manufacturers of generic drugs. After...
Let the Poor Starve (updated)
Congressman Stephen Fincher, a Republican from Tennessee, is part of an effort to cut $20 billion from food stamps, a program that helps feed nearly 50...
Greenpeace on shale. Really?
I have long been bemused by the politics of shale gas in the UK. It's hard to understand why a Conservative-led government is not trying to get the stuff out...
Early reactions to the High-level Panel Post-2015 report
Below, you can find my summary of the High-level Panel report on what should replace the Millennium Development Goals. Here's a summary of reaction to its...
After 2015 – the High Level Panel reports
The Secretary General’s High Level Panel has published its report (download here) on the post-2015 development agenda – here’s quick review of what it’s come...
Obama – inevitable lame duck
Tweet on election night: Pundits: get ahead of the game. Make a start on your "Obama's a lame duck now" column. — David Steven (@davidsteven) November 6, 2012...
The worst corporate scandal you never heard of
Like many people, I have grown blasé about the successive waves of corporate scandal that have broken since the financial meltdown of 2008, but Fortune's...
Stuart Hall – The danger of anonymity for rape defendants
When the UK’s coalition government came to power, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats promised that they would increase ‘fairness in the justice system’ by...
A pogrom against bankers?
What an appalling quote from Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in the Telegraph: Let us all agree that top bankers behaved very badly. Let us agree too with Vince Cable...
The United States after the Great Recession
A paper by David Steven, Joshua Meltzer and Claire Langley, published by the Brookings Institution, supported by the FutureWorld Foundation, on how the United States should respond to the aftermath of the recession in order to promote growth and sustainability in the coming years.
Goals in a Post-2015 Development Framework
An options brief by David Steven, published by New York University's Center on International Cooperation and funded by the UN Foundation, on the role that...
Goals after 2015
As the High Level Panel on the Post-2015 Development Agenda meets in Liberia, New York University’s Center on International Cooperation has published a new...
The Problem with Fossil Fuel ‘Subsidies’
Like all right-thinking people, I am passionately opposed to fossil fuel subsidies. What could be worse than paying people to accelerate the rate at which we...
Obama’s failure on climate
In the Guardian, George Monbiot is incandescent about the failure of Obama and Romney to speak out about climate change. The two candidates remain struck...
Let’s Drive a Lot More
In The Economist, Schumpeter extols the benefits of driverless cars: When people are no longer in control of their cars they will not need driver insurance—so...
Ending poverty – can it be done?
Global Dashboard, November 2011: But let’s go back to the poverty MDG. In 1990, there were 1.8 billion poor people (in a world of 5.3bn people). If the...
Intelligent Agents or How to Stop Consumers Getting Screwed
Seemingly inadvertently yesterday, David Cameron made a commitment to legislation that would force utilities to ensure their customers were always on the...
Rumsfeld – Keeping American Strong and Safe
Donald Rumsfeld a few moments ago... The attacks on our embassies & diplomats are a result of perceived American weakness. Mitt Romney is right to point...
Cheating with Numbers – Bankers vs Journalists
In a banking crisis, many - or most - banks flirt with insolvency. They stay in business through cheating, lying, and blackmailing the state. As I said in a...
More from Global Dashboard
Justice for All and the Economic Crisis
As COVID-19 plunges the world into its most serious economic crisis for a century, a surge in demand for justice is inevitable. Businesses face bankruptcy – and whole industries may be insolvent. Similar pain is being felt in the public and non-profit sectors....
Effective Activism in a Time of Coronavirus: what are we learning six months in?
Nothing I’ve read has captured our times and our task better than this essay from Western States Center ED Eric K. Ward: “leading in easy times is, well, easy. But these times are not them”. Leading in difficult times is unbelievably hard, but we will all be...
Who Speaks for the Global South Recipients of Aid?
The murder of George Floyd and the resurfacing of the Black Lives Matter movement has led to heightened discussions on race in the international development sector. Aid practitioners in the North have not only condemned the systemic racism that they (suddenly) now see...