Posts by Dave
Events during lockdown: More than 1,900 sign-ups
LIDC temporarily closed the doors to its offices on 20 Bloomsbury Square in mid-March this year. Overnight, all aspects of our operations had to move online and be carried out remotely – including our events. New format, global reach Switching to Zoom and Collaborate Ultra has allowed us to have a truly global reach:…
Read MoreOlder people and the pandemic: India’s forgotten generation
India is fast becoming a global hotspot for Covid-19. As of late June, the country had reached 456,000 cases. Only Russia, Brazil and the USA have reported more Covid-19 infections than India. Soldiers have been called in to manage healthcare centres in the capital after a spike in positive tests. 20,000 extra beds will…
Read MorePrivate lending and debt risks of low-income developing countries
Low-income developing countries (LIDCs) are greatly affected by the coronavirus pandemic, and sovereign debt has become a major concern. While the current situation is unprecedented, concerns about the potential for debt problems in LIDCs have been mounting in recent years. Our new ODI report provides timely insights into the risks that the wave of…
Read MoreInterventions gone wrong: Learning from the failures we didn’t see coming
About the author: Thokozile Munthali, Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Officer in the Government of Malawi. Thokozile was awarded a bursary to attend LIDC’s short course “Evaluation: From Innovation to Impact” in 2019. No one wants a project to fail. But can anything good come from failure? The government of my home country Malawi…
Read MoreInvestigating the new virus
It was the beginning of lockdown in the UK. Schools had closed. Bedrooms became offices and Zoom took the place of meeting rooms. People scrambled to find a new way to live their lives, do their jobs and adapt to an uncertain future. For Dr David Collier and his team, this was a time to…
Read MoreSeeing is believing: What field work showed me of curable vision loss
People with dwindling eyesight often face a dark future. Children who can’t see letters and numbers lag behind in school. Workers without reading glasses are forced to give up their livelihoods prematurely. When a person with vision loss gets behind the wheel, it is not only his own life that is at risk. And the…
Read MoreNew knowledge for the SDGs: How to secure funding for international development research
Five years ago, the world’s leaders stood united behind a new blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. By 2030, we should have reached the ambitious set of goals and targets, known as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). But progress is slow and patchy. The pandemic threatens to reverse some of…
Read MoreZero chance for zero hunger?
One of three living in chronic food insecurity. More than two million regularly relying on food handouts. During floods and droughts, this figure doubles. Last year, this was the harsh reality for Kenyans. In 2020 – a year that will go down in history book as a year of gloom – even more people…
Read MoreWorld Malaria Day: Covid-19’s wrecking ball on SDG 3?
A few years ago, it looked like the world was on track to stamp out malaria for good. Malaria cases and deaths fell fast in the first 15 years of the millennium. But then progress stalled. In 2017, there were an estimated 219 million cases of malaria in 87 countries. 435,000 people died, most of…
Read MoreSniffing out the smell of Covid-19
Photo by James Barker on Unsplash Can sniffer dogs be used on the frontline in the fight against Covid-19? Professor James Logan at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) is hopeful that it is possible to train dogs to detect the disease, even in people who are infected but show no symptoms.…
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