Performance monitoring, most prominently exemplified in the Millennium Development Goals, is often perceived as providing objective results. Using the case of access to rural water supplies in Ethiopia, a new…
The power and politics around ‘objective’ performance monitoring
Mariana Mazzucato on ‘The Green Entrepreneurial State’: video, audio & slides
Mariana Mazzucato gave a public lecture on ‘The Green Entrepreneurial State’ as part of this year’s STEPS Summer School. Audio, video and slides from her talk are now available (see…
On the benefits of walking and talking
Our Summer School kicked off today, with 38 students from 25 countries meeting at IDS for two weeks of intensive debate and discussion. On Wednesday, after a short lecture on…
Public lecture, 12 May: ‘The Green Entrepreneurial State’
We’re delighted to announce that Prof Mariana Mazzucato will be the speaker for our annual public lecture at Sussex University, which takes place as part of the STEPS Centre Summer…
IPCC: should climate change debates be more political?
The latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, focusing on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability, makes sobering reading. But it also situates climate change among a range of other…
Food Sovereignty: a Critical Dialogue
On 24 January 2014, the event ‘Food Sovereignty: A Critical Dialogue’ will bring together sceptics and advocates of food sovereignty to discuss the future of this controversial idea in critical…
Why we should embrace different stories in sustainability
How can critical views of ‘stories’ help in seeking pathways to sustainability? I’ve recently got back from the Communicate conference where I talked about stories using examples from the STEPS…
Big stories, little stories
This is the (slightly edited) text of my talk at Communicate 2013, in a session called “liberating stories”. The pictures are some of the slides I used. The brief was…
The Water Cookbook: Bhagwati Prasad’s strange and beautiful illustrations from peri-urban Delhi
I’ve just come across a copy of The Water Cookbook which I was given by Lyla Mehta, produced by part of our project looking at water conflicts in peri-urban Delhi….
Where branding and sustainability collide
By Nathan Oxley, Communications Officer, STEPS Centre Peace Parks sound lovely, don’t they? I mean, who would be against the idea of creating a nature reserve across national borders to promote…