In recent years, dozens of countries have been rocked by riots, often associated with popular demand for fuel.  A paper, published today in World Development, by The Policy Practice Director Neil McCulloch (and co-authors Davide Natalini, Noami Hossain and Patricia Justino) uses a new international dataset on fuel riots to explore the effects of fuel prices and price regimes on fuel riots.

TPP is assisting the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) design a multi-donor governance programme in Somaliland on inclusive governance, and to consider the need for any complementary support to strengthening core state functions.

TPP Principal Alex Duncan, TPP Associate Mohamed Hersi, and researcher Sahra Hassan undertook fieldwork in Somaliland and Kenya in April 2022. They met key stakeholders in government and donor agencies in Hargeisa and Nairobi. The team will return to Kenya in May to present their initial findings to a core reference group of international donors.

TPP Associate, Susie Alegre’s book “Freedom to Think: The Long Struggle to Liberate our Minds” out 7th April with Atlantic Books (available to pre-order now) explores the history of the right to freedom of thought and the threats it faces in the digital age.

On 17 February 2022, Gareth Williams organised a webinar on thinking politically about health systems resilience. The webinar recording is now available.

Yemen’s electricity sector is in a state of crisis.  This blog by TPP Director Neil McCulloch outlines how a new approach is needed to fix it with a focus on restoring livelihoods.

On 2 December 2021, Chemonics, in partnership with The Policy Practice, organised a webinar entitled “Power shift: politics and the energy transition in emerging markets.” 

This webinar brought together leading thinkers on the political economy of the energy transition to discuss the factors that slow down, but also those that might speed up the energy transition.  Experts from South Africa, Sri Lanka and Lebanon shared their knowledge about how the political economy context affected the nature and speed of transition and the implications for the implementation of programs. 

TPP Director Neil McCulloch worked with the Lebanon Centre for Policy Studies to write a brief which outlines the Yemeni experience following the collapse of its electricity sector and to derive lessons to be learnt for Lebanon. The brief discusses the approaches taken by the authorities controlling different parts of the country to address a near breakdown in service, notably the Houthi administration in the North, who fully liberalized the market, and the Internationally Recognized Government in the South, who maintained a state monopoly on energy production and a highly subsidized tariff.

This blog explore how the UK supported public financial management (PFM) reforms in Nigeria for 20 years, as part of an effort to translate oil revenues and debt relief into better infrastructure and public services. It identifies what made the reform happen, and draws lessons for other PFM programmes.

Laure-Hélène Piron and Sam Waldock reflect on some of the unexpected lessons of 20 years of UK-funded (total £276.5m) governance programmes in Nigeria, in particular how programmes were able to understand their contexts and worked with both state and not state actors to achieving lasting changes in Northern Nigeria.