Sue Unsworth
It is with great sadness that we announce the death of Sue Unsworth. Sue has been a terrific colleague for the past decade, always stimulating and always challenging in the best way, with her incisive mind. She has led the development within the Policy Practice of a lot of our best thinking.
Sue’s legacy in being the person who initially brought political economy into DFID's way of thinking about international development, and helping to make it more realistic and less prone to the sort of wishful thinking that she had little time for, is clear to see. Her approach is now embedded pretty thoroughly. And though she started with DFID, her influence can also been seen across many if not most of the official development agencies worldwide.
Political economy analysis for climate action - new course launched starting October 2024
The Policy Practice is delighted to be re-running the popular online course on Political Economy Analysis for 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 eight, 2-hour online sessions from 4 October to 12 November 2024. For more information and to register please click below or see our flyer here.
The political economy of energy transitions in Ghana, Zambia and Vietnam - Policy Brief 17
Written by Sam Bickersteth with Neil McCulloch and Meron Tesfamichael, this policy brief draws out some of the common constraints hindering the energy transition in Ghana, Zambia, and Vietnam and many other countries in the Global South. It also shows how political economy analysis can help to identify politically feasible pathways of change in each country demonstrating the importance of such analysis as an essential tool to understand energy transition.
Media support: aid funding does not match donor rhetoric
Laure-Hélène Piron (TPP Director) presented her analysis of official development assistance to media and the information environment to the Governance Network of the OECD Development Assistance Committee on 6 March 2024.
The draft report shows that the rhetoric of governments which support freedom of expression and condemn disinformation is not matched by sufficient funding. And too little directly goes to local media organisations.