As someone who grew up in Bangalore, I have seen my city undergo a startling transformation, from the Pensioners Paradise to the Silicon Valley of India. I am almost a pensioner myself now - I started writing this blog on my 60th birthday. Sometimes I feel stupefied and amazed by the changes - but I can't feel old: not with so much energy all around me. And from what I see, I feel truly optimistic about the new India, and in particular,... Read more

New partnerships often lead to innovative solutions for old problems. An example is the use of mobile telephones as a flood warning system in Ethiopia. When rainfall levels can be communicated instantly by upland farmers to lowland pastoralists, cattle, livelihoods and people can be saved. In this example the unlikely partnership between local communities, a mobile phone company and an INGO thus created a positive development gain. In a similar... Read more

Gender mainstreaming.  The phrase may remind me sometimes of Jane Austen's comment on Basingstoke - 'there is something direful in the very sound'… yet I, and other gender and development specialists, spend my life doing it. Gender Mainstreaming is the process of integrating the aims of gender equality and women's rights into the agendas, policies, and practices of governments and NGOs throughout the world. It was first... Read more

Somalia has gone through periods of being ignored by the international community and then subjected to intense interference. In the absence of a functioning national government for two decades, Somalis have tried various ways to organise the country. But sadly, so far these efforts have been overshadowed by conflict and power struggles at the national level, in which the interests of most Somalis have been disregarded. On top of... Read more

The Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development got a small boost as Ban Ki Moon's High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability (GSP) launched its report last month, entitled Resilient People, Resilient Planet: A Future Worth Choosing. Made up of 22 global bigwigs, the Panel's goal was "to formulate a new vision for sustainable growth and prosperity along with mechanisms to achieve it." The hope was that... Read more

The discussion paper just launched by Oxfam, A Safe and Just Space for Humanity, has many positive aspects that can be shared with organisations and movements in the Global South. It also contains elements that are in line with Oxfam's commitment to eradicating poverty and protecting the environment.  The document proposes a doughnut, which adds a pastry to the mix of sustainable development recipes, and we should review... Read more

The doughnut 'compass' is a powerful idea. The original 'planetary boundaries' concept focused on biophysical factors: there was some internal logic to this - it aimed to identify the conditions under which we couldn't expect the planet to continue supporting us, regardless of how we care to organise ourselves as a human race.  But of course, as soon as you ask practical questions about how we might manage our interaction... Read more

What's going on in the diagram above? Start with the outer ring. In 2009, a group of leading Earth-system scientists (Rockström et al) proposed a set of nine Earth-system processes (like freshwater use, climate regulation, and the nitrogen cycle) that are critical for keeping this planet in the stable state which has been so beneficial to humankind over the past 10,000 years. (That's the Holocene Epoch, and it's nothing to sniff... Read more

When it comes to humanitarian crises, Oxfam specialises in the appropriate acronym of 'WASH' (Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Promotion ). In 2011, hundreds of Oxfam staff delivered water and sanitation and other relief to millions of people afflicted by drought, floods or earthquakes. But in much of the world, a growing proportion of our humanitarian aid flows through local organisations, and this proportion is rising rapidly.... Read more

Seasonality is the observation that rural livelihoods in developing countries undergo regular, predictable, and often massive, changes according to the pattern of the seasons. In particular, the annual rains bring about - or bring to a peak - all sorts of effects - and most of them adverse if you are poor. These include starvation, energy depletion, increases in sickness, migration, shortage of money and going into debt. It was a regular... Read more