As of March 2026, this website is no longer being updated.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.
The EU and the Poor: Unfinished business
The EUEuropean Union and the Poor: Unfinished business ODIOverseas Development Institute (London) Opinion 16, May 2004
'The fate of the European constitution looks likely to dominate debate in Europe over coming months. In international development, however, other issues matter more. There is much unfinished business Romano Prodi will leave behind.
It is important to say that EUEuropean Union development cooperation improved when the Prodi Commission came to office in 1999. It needed to. A series of critical evaluations in the mid-1990s had revealed incoherent leadership, poor policy and often dreadful implementation. The new Commission shuffled the portfolios. It wrote a new policy emphasising poverty reduction. It created a single implementing agency, EuropeAid. And it passed responsibility for many decisions down to local field offices. The EUEuropean Union also signed up to the Doha development round on trade, and made the right noises about ‘coherence’, especially reform of the Common Agricultural Policy................ (see link in title for full article)