A High Level Panel on Humanitarian Cash Transfers, which I chaired, has concluded that much more humanitarian aid should be provided as cash, rather than as vouchers or in-kind; and that this change should be used to bring about broader reforms of humanitarian aid.
There is an article by Theo Talbot and me in the latest edition of ECDPM’s Great Insights Private Sector Matters. We argue that rather than subsidising inputs or reducing risk to leverage private finance for development, it would be more effective for public sector actors such as donors to provide Read more…
Rather than giving refugees food, shelter, water and medical care, it is often better to give them cash.
World Humanitarian Day is an opportunity to celebrate the courage of humanitarian workers, but also to think about how to improve the system. I am chairing a High Level Panel looking at the role of cash transfers in humanitarian aid.
The Financing for Development Conference in July 2015 in Addis Ababa was never going to solve all the world’s development problems. The policy framework is pretty good, but will only be important if government, companies and organisations now take specific actions.
This article appeared in The Guardian Development Professionals Network on Friday 10 July, 2015. Development economist Owen Barder gives an insight into what the coming five days of plenaries, roundtables and side events will be all about
Ban Ki-Moon says that we can be the first generation that ends poverty. An update of the list of occasions on which this claim has been made.
We won’t get development from global and domestic “tax and spend” alone. We should be focusing more on the huge untapped wealth locked up by policies and behaviour which distort the global economy, creating massive economic, environmental, and welfare losses for most of the world’s population.
Podcasts are back in fashion – here is why, and a list of what I am listening to.
Let’s dump technology transfer from the Addis declaration and substitute technology development and sharing — they could be two of the most important components of post-2015 development success.