Latest Posts
How the World Bank and the IMF can work for the poor after half a century of misguided policies
After half a century, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) annual meetings are back on African soil this week. The last time the annual meetings were held in Africa was in 1973 in my own country, Kenya. Many African countries had recently become…
The Pinnacle of Civilisation
Meet my friend Chris. Chris is one of my oldest friends, I have known him since I was 11. We were boy scouts together and have hiked many a mile since then. His energy remains irrepressible, he is truly a force of nature. Chris is…
Press Release: President of Namibia, Chief Minister of Sierra Leone, and other world leaders call for bolder action on inequality and SDG10 at UNGA
This week, world leaders came together on the sidelines of the 2023 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Summit to urge for more global attention to addressing inequality. In a joint statement, they highlighted the urgency to save the inequality global goal (SDG10) and dramatically accelerate efforts…
The Sun Never Sets on Colonial Wealth.
Colonialism and the origins of today’s extreme wealth inequality I remember being in Kenya in 2020 and seeing the pictures of those protestors throwing the statue of the slaver into the sea and being so excited. I had been researching a piece on the Mau…
Sick Development Ep 2 – The Key Man
Transcripts Maaza 00:14 This is Sick Development, a podcast that shines a spotlight on the harms caused by rich country governments channeling billions in development funds to for profit health care in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. I’m your host Maaza Seyoum and thank you…
Sick Development Ep 1-Introducing Sick Development
Transcripts Host, Maaza 00:11 Here are some people you’ve never met with whom you might share an unlikely connection: The family of the late George Mwenje Mwangi, they had to make a public appeal to raise funds to pay for the release of his body…
How the United Nations and the World Bank can turbo charge the effort to reduce Inequality
It is difficult to reduce inequality by dwelling on the poorest without reducing the concentration at the top Over the past decade, many leading economists and global institutions such as the United Nations (UN), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank have taken…
The Uncounted Rich
A few years ago, Alex Cobham published a great book which was called ‘The Uncounted’ and had a powerful central argument- inequality is much worse than we think, because so much of it is uncounted. At the bottom, because our data on poverty comes from…
Open Letter to the United Nations Secretary-General and President of the World Bank-Setting Serious Goals to Combat Inequality
Dear Secretary-General of the United Nations Antonio Guterres and President of the World Bank Ajay Banga, RE: Setting serious goals to combat inequality As a group of economists and leaders in the fight against extreme inequalities from around the world, we write to request your…
75 years ago this week a miracle happened in my country.
A very un-British Miracle 75 years ago, this week a miracle happened in my country. On July the 5th, 1948, the National Health Service was launched. It was a truly incredible achievement, a significant slice of socialism in the birthplace of capitalism. A tax funded,…
The miracle of equitable economic growth, and why we need it now more than ever.
My first proper job for Oxfam was wonderful. I had just returned from living in Malawi, and I got a job supporting Oxfam offices working on governance and public policies. As part of this job, I travelled for the first time to Vietnam, and I…
What will it take to kill a Zombie?
A remarkable speech from Joe Biden’s National Security Adviser ‘The vision of public investment that had energized the American project in the postwar years—and indeed for much of our history—had faded. It had given way to a set of ideas that championed tax cutting and…
Industrial Slavery’s Ground Zero
In 1650 the most important colony in the British Empire, the jewel in the imperial crown, was not India, or Egypt or South Africa. It was Barbados, the small eastern-most island in the Caribbean. It was here the English (officially Britain itself did not exist…
Land inequality, my friend Robin and Malawi
Mulanje mountain in the south of Malawi is a truly mystical place. It rises from the plain in very steep cliffs, to a mysterious plateau high in the clouds. Its near vertical walls of black rock have water pouring down them that glistens magically in…
Locusts, disasters and the other side of climate inequality.
Locusts, climate loss and inequality In the summer of 2020, when the world was reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic, Kenya and other drought-stricken countries in East Africa were hit by a plague of locusts. It was a truly biblical moment. Millions of these voracious insects…