If the politics of climate change end up polarised, is that so bad? No – it’s disastrous. Or so I’ve long thought. Look at the US – where climate is even more polarised than abortion. Result: decades of flip flopping. Ambition under Clinton; reversal under Bush. In to the Paris agreement under Obama; out under Trump. Re-engagement under Biden… you get the drift. These kinds of wild swings are frustrating on any issue,...
Official development assistance (ODA) – or aid – is a small but conspicuous pillar of the international order, and its frailties are being exposed by COVID as surely as those of the other foundations of this order. The assumptions underpinning aid and its management have long drawn fire from a broad range of critics, but this has been particularly acute in recent years. This has resulted in dwindling confidence in aid as an instrument of development, giving rise to a series of sensible, if slow-moving, initiatives to address some of its systemic flaws. We argue that these initiatives are welcome but, in and of themselves, are incapable of lifting aid effectiveness to meet the lofty rhetoric of the expectations that it is burdened by.
Since its onset, one striking feature of the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) has been the narrative power of its novelty. This global narrative depicts COVID-19 pushing humanity towards a ‘historical divide’ of BC and AC (before and after COVID-19), where unknown, unpredictable futures await. Within the humanitarian sector, we reveal this same preoccupation with the post-COVID future in a plethora of reports and webinars. While the virus itself may be the antihero of this narrative, we believe uncertainty should be recognised as the second, less visible protagonist.
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....
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...
Following our Local Week on Global Dashboard, we have collated all the articles into one easy to read flipbook
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....
Created in partnership with: COVID-19 marks a turning point in the 21st century.? Levels of uncertainty are off the chart, making predictions impossible. ?But if we can create plausible stories about different futures, we create a...
Back in 2010, a report entitled Confronting the Long Crisis of Globalization, which we co-wrote with Bruce Jones, was published by the Brookings Institution. Today, we release a new report exploring the link between the Long Crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. Read the...
Last month, we released a call to action by members of the Justice Leadership Group – a call for justice leaders to step up, work collaboratively, and put people-centred justice at the heart of their response to the COVID-19 crisis. Now, we’re pleased to announce that...
The year 2020 will go down in history as the year when much changed. One thing seems to remain constant: the fact that the justice sector is slow to change. As a consequence, it seems to be missing a rather big boat.
Since April, we have been calling for justice leaders of the world to get out of their national cubby holes and come together to share fears, failures, successes, and strategies, just like public health minister are doing. The COVID-19 crisis is too big and too unprecedented to deal with on your own national level. On 20 October, 22 ministers of justice did just that at the Justice for All in a Global Emergency meeting convened by Minister of Justice for Canada, David Lametti. It was a significant moment. For 90 minutes, they shared their experiences in dealing with the COVID-19 crisis. This is what I took away from it….
Depuis le mois d’avril, nous appelons les leaders de la justice du monde entier à sortir de leur cagibi national et à se réunir afin de partager leurs craintes, leurs échecs, leurs succès ainsi que leurs stratégies, comme le font les ministres de la santé publique. La crise du COVID-19 est trop importante et trop inédite pour être uniquement traitée au niveau national. C’est justement ce qu’ont fait 22 Ministres de la Justice le 20 octobre dernier lors de la réunion “Justice pour tous dans une situation d’urgence mondiale” convoquée par le ministre de la justice du Canada, David Lametti. Ce fut un moment important, pendant lequel ils ont partagé leurs expériences de la crise du COVID-19. Voici ce que j’en ai retenu…
It is increasingly clear that the direct and indirect impacts of the global COVID-19 pandemic are not borne equally, hitting the most marginalised and vulnerable the hardest. While the impact of COVID-19 on prison populations has garnered some international attention, this attention has mainly focused on adults. Children in detention have been largely overlooked, despite being disproportionally vulnerable to health risks arising due to the conditions in which so many are being held.
My new book, How to Fight Inequality, is published today. I look back at when inequality had been beaten before, and found that inequality was never beaten through the grace of saviour leaders, but was instead beaten by people power. Here, I discuss what it will take beat inequality and to organise that people power once again.
There is a gaping divide between the impressive innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem of Tunisia and the formal justice sector. And now, like others, Tunisia is facing even larger justice demands from citizens as a result of COVID-19. But this divide must be bridged in order for Tunisian citizens to get what they need to solve their justice problems.
As COVID-19 plunges the world into its most serious economic crisis for a century, a surge in demand for justice is inevitable. The impact on justice systems will be enormous. Already battered by the pandemic and by the strains of designing and regulating lockdowns, they should expect millions more people to need help with evictions and job losses…
Leading in difficult times is unbelievably hard, but we will all be better at it if we share what we’re learning and invite others to challenge our thinking and contribute their own. In that spirit, here are the four things that I think are emerging as lessons about effective activism in a time of coronavirus.
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 to be endemic in the sector, but have also vowed to ‘change’ or even ‘end’ aid altogether. COVID-19 has further spurred analysis of how the sector may now change – or not – post pandemic. But decisions about how aid should be ‘done’ in developing countries should be taken by those at the receiving end.
Racism is rooted in a combination of prejudice and power, and action to combat racism must address both. The development sector is plagued by problems on both dimensions, but the Black Lives Matter moment offers an opportunity to change course. So far, however, development organisations have focused more on prejudice rather than confronting inequalities of power. To do more, we should adapt models from elsewhere to our own challenge. So here’s my four-point blueprint for Black Lives Matter in the development sector.
The COVID-19 crisis is another timely reminder of the need for building resilience into our social, economic, and financial systems – locally, nationally, and globally. It has exposed the vulnerability of our societies, of our health systems, but also the susceptibility of supply chains and the gig economy. Financial systems have held up relatively well, thanks to stricter capital requirements introduced after the 2008 crisis and decisive intervention by central banks, but are now also starting to show cracks. Increasing resilience needs to be one of the main guiding principles to ensure we are better prepared to withstand future pandemics.
This piece is a call for intimacy and to centre all of our work in a “politics of trust, empathy, love and care.” We know those emotions to be real, human, and to matter. Accepting that charges us with this: reconceiving how we address inequity and inequality (which remain the core mission of the problematic global institutions that we both still….love) through trust, and care, and love. How can we weave these ideas into everything that international institutions do? How do we get all the staff, workers, and seemingly inanimate ‘programmes’ to let our messy, warm humanity be the focus of our work, rather than the technocratically convenient, and theoretically bloodless numerical success of ‘ending poverty’?
