development — Philippa Garson

Jan 31
Jan 31 Hurricane Irma highlights the great divide in disaster vulnerability

As Hurricane Irma whipped its way through the Caribbean and headed for Florida, its catastrophic impacts further east put into stark relief the vulnerability of the region’s poor island communities to increasingly fierce and frequent weather events.

Jan 31
Jan 31 Unsustainable Development Goals: Are 222 indicators too many?

Philippa Garson

Are the Sustainable Development Goals in danger of collapsing under the weight of their own lofty ambitions?

Jan 31
Jan 31 Climate change and conflict: it’s complicated

Philippa Garson

Scientists may not see Mad Max-style “water wars” ahead, but they nevertheless see strong relationships between conflict and climate change.

Jan 31
Jan 31 COP21: Why talking about the weather is important

Philippa Garson

As weather becomes more extreme and erratic, the scramble for a bigger and better set of tools to cope with the fallout is on.

Jan 31
Jan 31 Outflanking the war on drugs?

Philippa Garson

It’s widely acknowledged that the “war on drugs” has failed. A militarised approach based on prohibition and incarceration has stoked staggering levels of violence and misery, cost billions of dollars, and failed to reduce either supply or demand.

Jan 31
Jan 31 Beyond the body counts: Why murder rates matter to humanitarians

Philippa Garson

Are homicide statistics just another number crunching exercise or a helpful indicator for humanitarian intervention?

Jan 31
Jan 31 Understanding organized crime in Africa

Philippa Garson

Growing concern about the extent to which organized crime is undermining stability and prosperity on the African continent is galvanizing a search for analytical tools and a clamour for more research to understand the contextual forces at play and how best to undermine them.

Jan 31
Jan 31 Data to the people!

Philippa Garson

Protests against poor delivery of services such as water, toilets, health and education, have become such a ubiquitous part of the South African landscape they barely make the news: as the delivery problems continue, so do the protests, and the vicious cycle of creeping poverty and mounting frustration continues

Jan 31
Jan 31 Breaking the poverty trap – the power of cash grants

Philippa Garson

A cash injection of as little as US$12 per month for an impoverished family could determine whether a child eats properly or goes to school or not. With cash transfer programmes around the world now having a profound impact on the lives of poor people, the debate is less about whether to implement them than how to do so.

Jan 31
Jan 31 Spare the rod - the biology of poverty and violence

Philippa Garson

Scientific advances in human biology may soon have a profound bearing on the policies that governments and organizations adopt towards young mothers, caregivers and babies in poor and stressed communities.

Jan 31
Jan 31 Acting locally - the South's rising philanthropy

Philippa Garson

Forget Gates. Move over Oprah. Emerging economies too have their own home-grown titans of philanthropy, providing a potentially better attuned and more sustainable income source for local humanitarian and development needs.

Jan 31
Jan 31 Tapping into a tradition of giving

Philippa Garson

Traditional and faith-based forms of giving have been around for centuries and continue to play a major role in determining people’s giving patterns. There is much excitement about the pace at which formal philanthropy is taking hold in many developing countries, but some believe that understanding - and perhaps harnessing - indigenous traditions could make philanthropic initiatives more sustainable in the long run.

Jan 31
Jan 31 Challenges of bringing more women into the Afghan justice sector

Philippa Garson

Better gender representation in the justice sector in Afghanistan will empower more women to take action against the men who abuse them. This is the reasoning of the International Development Law Organization (IDLO), which released a report last week documenting the gains - and considerable challenges that still lie ahead - in bringing more women into key legal positions in the country.

Jan 31
Jan 31 African philanthropy on the rise

Philippa Garson

The emergence of a new breed of super-rich individuals in Africa has been accompanied by the steady growth of Western-style philanthropic foundations and other structured forms of giving.

Jan 31
Jan 31 Africa’s Top 10 Philanthropists

Philippa Garson

An estimated US$7 billion is given away every year by Africa’s philanthrocapitalists – at least the ones we know about. These are the men (sadly no women yet on this list) providing home-grown solutions to local needs.

Jan 31
Jan 31 Calls for a ceasefire in the war on drugs

Philippa Garson

Despite growing acknowledgement that the war on drugs has failed, global consensus on the way forward remains elusive. Nevertheless, some detect a “paradigm shift” among many players at the forefront of the debate.

Jan 31
Jan 31 Life-saving hepatitis C drug approved, but cost is high

Philippa Garson

Following approvals in the US and Europe this month of a new drug to treat hepatitis C, activists are pushing for the medication to be made available in poor countries, a development reminiscent of the activism that forced down HIV/AIDS drug prices a decade ago in Brazil, South Africa and Thailand.

Jan 31
Jan 31 Push to tackle corruption in post-2015 agenda

Philippa Garson

With the realization that corruption is undermining development and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), experts are lobbying the UN to adopt goals and targets on good governance and transparency in the post-2015 development agenda.