As of March 2026, this website is no longer being updated.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.
'Yes, but... or Yes, and...': How to pitch the 2005 debate, ODIOverseas Development Institute (London) Blog, June 2005
On Tuesday, we held a media briefing at ODIOverseas Development Institute (London) on the 2005 agenda. As usual, we paid tribute to the political leadership and energy driving the 2005 agenda, and then got stuck in to the technical issues we mostly work on: absorptive capacity, investment policy, trade issues and all the rest. The first comment we received, from a senior BBC journalist, was ‘hang on, the audience out there can’t handle this complexity. The story has to be simple. The problem is poverty. The answer is debt relief, aid and trade liberalisation’. End of story. Literally........................
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