Blogs
LIDC’S Lockdown Literature: seven books to get through the third lockdown
Discovering informative, fascinating and provocative reads has become a treasured pastime of mine during lockdown 3.0. We are living through a period of heightened anxiety, but also prevailing boredom and restlessness for many who are staying at home. Finding a…
Nairobi’s cool waters: A river of resistance
Nairobi River defines Nairobi City. Its Maasai name, “enkare nairobi”– meaning cool waters – has given Nairobi its name. People who live nearby depend on the river for farming and for domestic, industrial and recreational activities. The quality of the…
The donkey skins trade – a public health hazard and threat to livelihoods
Live donkeys, their skins and associated products cross borders without any surveillance, potentially carrying dangerous pathogens from country to country. Sounds all too familiar? Indeed – the Covid-19 epidemic started in a similar way. In 2019, an outbreak of equine…
Older 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…
Private 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.…
Interventions 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…
Seeing 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…
Zero 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…
World 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…
Sniffing 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…