As of March 2026, this website is no longer being updated.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 DfID any good or isn't it? And who's asking? ODIOverseas Development Institute (London) Blog, April 2007
This has been a challenging couple of weeks for DFID. On 19 March, Bronwen Maddox published a sceptical piece in The Times newspaper, that was followed up in its tabloid stablemate, The Sun, and then in a series of interviews on 25 March on the World This Weekend, a flagship current affairs programme on the BBC’s Radio 4. There was then a flurry of questions in the House of Commons on 28 March, dealing in different ways with the need for more independent audit of DFID’s work. In the same period, the Civil Service published its own Capability Review of DFID; and in the previous week, the department itself published its own policy paper on Preventing Violent Conflict, relevant because much of the case against DFIDDepartment for International Development has been about political analysis and about working with other departments................ (see link in title for full article)
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