The Policy Practice is delighted to announce a new short online course focussing on the Political Economy of Climate Action. This course explains how political economy analysis can be used to understand the challenge of action on climate change and to design more effective interventions.  The course will consist of seven, 2-hour online sessions from 31 October to 27 November 2023. For more information and to register please click below

In March 2023, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a Synthesis report of its huge sixth assessment report, pointing out that greenhouse gas emissions must fall dramatically – starting immediately – for us to have any chance of keeping the global temperature within 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels by 2100.   The response to this depressing reality from many advocating urgent action to tackle climate is that we must try harder. That failing to do so will result in catastrophe. This blog argues that this is the wrong approach. That the rallying cry to keep on pushing forward is unlikely to work unless we have a better understanding of the political barriers to doing so.

Neil was interviewed by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) about the controversial fuel subsidy reforms that have just taken place in Nigeria. 

This article first appeared on the IISD website - see link below:

TPP Director Neil McCulloch’s book Ending Fossil Fuel Subsidies: the politics of saving the planet was featured in the Financial Times (paywalled) as one of three good books on ‘How to rethink climate change’. 

A Policy Brief summarising the book's main messages is available here.

Duncan Green has published this blog to coincide with a webinar on “Making a difference: How Applied Political Economy Analysis contributes to impact through better informed decisions” on Wednesday 24 May. It shares the findings of a Learning Review on the use of PEA in three USAID-funded human rights projects under the Human Rights Support Mechanism, which is led by Freedom House with the American Bar Association Rule of Law Initiative and Pact as core consortium partners.

During May 2023, Laure-Hélène, TPP Director, and Ben French, TPP Associate, are delivering workshops in Islamabad, Kinshasa and Nairobi to introduce government officials and World Bank staff to a new way of designing and implementing public financial management reforms - based on participatory diagnostics and action planning.

How does Applied Political Economy Analysis (APEA) help us to inform choices about our programs, and what difference does that make to the kind of impact we hope to achieve?

This webinar was led by PACT in association with Alina Rocha Menocal and Laure-Hélène Piron from The Policy Practice who will share the findings of their learning review.

Listen to the recording here.

Read the final report here

In April 2023, Alex Duncan revisited South Sudan for the first time in 40 years since working there for four years as an agricultural economist.  This is a lecture he gave at Juba University on the work that was then started, the lessons learned and the implications for the present.

This policy brief from TPP Director Dr Neil McCulloch is based on his book “Ending Fossil Fuel Subsidies – the politics of saving the planet”, published by Practical Action Publishing. 

It summarises the problem with fossil fuel subsidies, how they inflict harm and what steps are being taken to reduce them.  It also shows why subsidies persist and why existing efforts have been so ineffective. Drawing lessons from countries which have tried to remove fossil fuel subsidies, it explains that the fundamental challenge to reform is not technical, but political.