As of March 2026, this website is no longer being updated.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.
Reading between the lines: are European development ministers living up to expectations?
Reading between the lines: are European development ministers living up to expectations? Europe's World, Feb. 2009, with Mikaela Gavas
European development ministers were in the spotlight at their meeting in Brussels in May, at the General Affairs and External Relations Council. With a development-friendly response to the global recession on everyone’s mind, and with big changes afoot in the architecture of European development cooperation, the development annex to the communiqué was subject to unusually careful reading. As we and other ODIOverseas Development Institute (London) colleagues have reported in earlier blogs on EU development policy, the Commission had made far-reaching proposals for ministers to consider. Would they meet expectations?................ (see link in title for full article)