Gender & power
Why sameness is not fairness!
Why treating everyone equally can produce unequal outcomes Few ideas sound more fair than the promise to treat everyone the same. Governments promise equal access to public serv…
Artificial Intelligence
AI & ethics
One road does not fit all
Why interventions must be fit for purpose Development is built on solutions. Roads improve access. Schools improve education. Health centres improve health. Credit improves live…
Research & methods
How problems become problems
Recognition, diagnosis and the roots we refuse to uproot. Every development intervention begins long before the first dollar is spent. It begins long before the baseline survey,…
Research & methods
What transforms understanding into recognised knowledge?
Understanding, legitimacy and the politics of recognition. I never doubted the value of expertise. Throughout my career I have worked with economists, engineers, statisticians,…
AI & ethics
The wrong solution to the right problem
What counts as evidence in development? I am a mathematician. Numbers make sense to me. Equations make sense to me. Econometrics makes sense to me. Models bring order to complex…
AI & ethics
The economy the market cannot see
Rethinking poverty, livelihoods and economic activity. The questionnaire was designed to measure consumption. But the people I interviewed were not consuming in the way the ques…
Gender & power
When baseline data carries hidden theories of change
The questionnaire was not the problem. The problem was the theory of change it was carrying. Early in my career, I was part of a team conducting a feasibility study for a rural…