Humanitarian aid is often at the centre of debates about efficiency, corruption and costly bureaucratic procedure. Digital technology seems to offer an alternative to centralised aid governance by allowing people to take direct initiative such as in the case of crowdfunding; participate in decentralised peer-to-peer systems...
In my review of 2016 for WiB I concluded that ‘We shouldn’t be holding our breath to see what happens in 2017, we need to fight side-by-side building upon existing struggles and as Antonio Gramsci suggests, be pessimistic in our thinking, optimistic in our wills and never...
2016 has been a dreadful year for many reasons. The rise of a politics dominated by real or imaginary scandals and post-truth rhetoric rather than debates on real needs and policy issues. The intensification of violence, hate, intolerance, cynicism, opportunism and frustration often amplified by technologically...
The UN has decided to appoint Wonder Woman as an honorary ambassador for gender equality and women empowerment. The purpose of this choice, according to the UN, is to use Wonder Woman’s image of strength and her role in the fight for justice and peace to...
The well-known story about the European Union begins with the establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community and later of the European Economic Community, following the end of the Second World War. This cooperation was very much motivated by the assumed nexus between political order...
“We can’t close the gender gap we all aspire to close, unless we close first the data gap.” With these words Melinda Gates announced at the Women Deliver conference in Copenhagen that the Gates Foundation is going to invest $80m in gender data “to accelerate progress...
Angela Davis – inspirational activist, scholar and writer – was in Italy last week to remind us about the importance of social movements and global solidarity and to share her thoughts about colonialism, racism and capitalism in two lectures in Roma and Bologna. She started the...
According to a new Oxfam report the richest 1% (62 people in the world, 53 of whom are men) owns as much wealth as the poorest half of the global population (3.6 billion). The report also points out that ‘since the turn of the century, the...
As the 2030 agenda for sustainable development has been adopted, more and more development actors, global leaders and celebrities are getting enthusiastic about starting a new chapter in development. But is this really going to be a new chapter? In view of the UN sustainable development...
