As of March 2026, this website is no longer being updated.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.
Is Tony Blair’s legacy on Africa at risk?
Is Tony Blair’s legacy on Africa at risk?, ODIOverseas Development Institute (London) Blog, May 2007
With the trade talks failing and aid volume way below target, is Tony Blair's legacy on Africa at risk? The G8Group of Eight meeting in Heiligendamm, Germany, in June, provides a last opportunity to persuade the most powerful leaders in the world to deliver on their promises. Angela Merkel will need to show some muscle.
Africa is only on the agenda in Germany because Blair won Merkel over. He persuaded her not to focus exclusively on her preferred topic, energy security (for which read relations with Vladimir Putin). This was a brave decision, because Germany is one of the countries in the firing line for not meeting pledges made at Blair’s own G8, at Gleneagles, in 2005..........