As of March 2026, this website is no longer being updated.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, 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.
What’s Next in International Development? Perspectives from the 20% Club and the 0.2% Club
What’s Next in International Development? Perspectives from the 20% Club and the 0.2% Club, ODIOverseas Development Institute (London) Working Paper 270
Summary: The ‘20% Club’ and the ‘0.2% Club’ offer different perspectives on the development agenda, with different though overlapping priorities. The ‘20% Club’ consists of countries which derive around 20% of GDPGross Domestic Product from aid. These countries will be major beneficiaries of the commitment in 2005 to double aid. Their agenda will cover such topics as absorptive capacity, political development and the use of aid to achieve both growth and human development. They will want to hold donors to account for delivery against commitments and will have a strong interest in streamlining the aid architecture. The ‘0.2% Club’ consists of countries in which aid plays a much smaller role. Here, the issues are more to do with managing the changing challenges of globalization, with regional and inter-regional collaboration, and with linkages to non-aid development issues like security and the management of the global commons. Countries in this Club are becoming aid donors themselves, and are looking for new kinds of partnership with developed countries. These different agendas are closely related, of course. In both areas, they challenge aid agencies to rethink their roles and their competencies. They also challenge development researchers to work on new issues and in new ways................. (see link in title for full article)