As of March 2026, this website is no longer being updated. I now work mainly on climate issues, especially in Brighton and Hove, and new work can be found on the website of Climate:Change, our independent think-tank on socially inclusive action in the City: www.climatechangebh.org.uk.
Meanwhile, however, this website has over 850 entries, mostly representing my work on international development from 2010-2025. Among much else, there are over 50 book reviews, more than 20 papers and training cases on bridging research and policy and on managing think-tanks, nearly 100 articles on climate change, and many papers on other topics, including aid, food security and nutrition, and the future of international development. See ‘Topics and Themes’ for more details. I can be reached at sm@simonmaxwell.net.
Heaven or Hubris: Reflections on the new ‘New Poverty Agenda’
'Heaven or Hubris: Reflections on the new ‘New Poverty Agenda’ ' in Black, R and White, HHill (Ecological Division, Nepal) (eds), Targeting Development: Critical perspectives on the Millennium Development Goals. Routledge: London. 2004. (also in Development Policy Review, 21:1, January 2003)
A new construction on poverty reduction links the Millennium Development Goals, an international consensus on how to reduce poverty, Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers, a new set of instruments for delivering aid, and, underpinning the others, results–based management. This new construction has undoubted strengths. There are also cross–cutting risks, that targets will oversimplify, citizenship will be neglected, trade–offs and conflicts of interest will be obscured, macro–economic policy will be neglected, social sectors will be emphasised at the expense of growth policies, and commitment to partnership will degrade into a form of covert conditionality. These risks are not immutable. A way forward is proposed, with a list of six principles and a set of Dos and Don’ts.