The UK Independent Commission on Aid Impact (ICAI) has published its review of UK aid's approach to democracy and human rights. TPP Director, Laure-Hélène Piron, was the team leader.

The review found that the UK’s democracy and human rights work has delivered useful results, often in difficult political contexts, but has been significantly affected by budget reductions since 2020 and the lack of a strategic framework. While it awarded an overall green/amber score, it found that future results were in doubt and that the UK no longer has the ability to respond to new challenges and deliver on the UK government’s high policy ambitions in this area.

Hands up if you would like petrol prices to go up?  I’m guessing not too many hands.  The cripplingly high costs of energy (both fuel, whether petrol, diesel, gas or coal as well as electricity) have posed a huge challenge for households and firms all around the world.  Massive increases in these costs, driven by the weaponization of energy by Putin after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, have plunged some households into poverty – forcing them to choose between heating and eating.  Businesses have laid off workers and scaled back activities because of the crippling price rises. 

Read the full blog from Dr. Neil McCulloch on Ending Fossil Fuel Subsidies: the politics of saving the planet

TPP Director, Neil McCulloch, has just launched a book on “Ending Fossil Fuel Subsidies – the politics of saving the planet”, published by Practical Action Publishing.  The book explains what fossil fuel subsidies are, how they inflict harm and what steps are being taken to reduce them.  It also shows why subsidies persist and why existing efforts have been so ineffective. Drawing lessons from countries which have tried to remove fossil fuel subsidies, it explains that the fundamental challenge to reform is not technical, but political. The book lays out a new agenda for action on fossil fuel subsidies, showing how a better understanding of the underlying political incentives can lead to more effective approaches to tackling this major global problem.

See this link for a video of author Neil McCulloch introducing his book in a lecture at IDS.