The Policy Practice is delighted to be re-running the popular online course on Political Economy Analysis for Climate Action. This course explains how political economy analysis can be used to understand the challenge of action on climate change and to design more effective interventions.  The course will consist of eight, 2-hour online sessions from 19 May to 19 June 2025. For more information and to register please click below or see our flyer here.

Congratulations to TPP Associate Dr Suwaiba Ahmad who has been appointed by Nigeria's President as the new Federal Minister of State Education.

Suwaiba is an education expert, gender advocate, and the Director of Bayero University's Centre for Gender Studies in Kano, Northern Nigeria. She has been working with TPP to provide advice to the UK's Partnership for Learning for All in Nigeria education programme. 

We wish her all possible success. From our experience of working closely with her, we know that she will bring a combination of hard work, personal integrity, passion for education and political realism to her new role.

Photo credit: ANTARA / Mudaffar Fauzan

On Sunday 20 October, Prabowo Subianto was inaugurated as the President of Indonesia. This blog explores the implications for the drive for electric vehicles (EV). Indonesia has made bold strides in developing an EV value chain. But the sector now faces major constraints including: reputational damage due to the environmental harm of mining and processing; challenges in accessing major Western markets; fiscal constraints and competing priorities under the new government; and the active promotion of a different model by manufacturers. The blog suggests ways in which external partners could work with Indonesia to support the resolution of these issues. 

This paper examines the impact of Political Economy Analysis (PEA) training in Sudan, focusing on the Kullana Liltanmia Contextual Analysis course. It underscores three key lessons: the importance of deepening understanding of complex, unstable environments like Sudan for informed decision-making; the underutilised potential of PEA in supporting individuals and key political actors; and the need for adaptive, participant-driven PEA training, especially in fragile, conflict-affected settings, requiring creativity and courage from all involved.

Image generated by Gemini

David Jacobstein, formerly from USAID's Democracy, Rights and Governance Bureau, describes how the DC Thinking and Working Politically Community of Practice assessed the extent to which proposals or tenders received by USAID incorporated political economy and thinking&working politically elements. 

TPP are pleased to welcome Steve Fraser and Theodore Trefon as our two new Associates.

Steve Fraser has over 30 years of experience living, studying and working in Nigeria as a development practitioner, including as Technical Director for the Engaged Citizens pillar of the UK's flagship governance programme in Nigeria.

Theodore Trefon is a senior researcher at the Belgian Royal Museum for Central Africa. He has devoted his career to studying environmental governance in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and elsewhere in Central Africa. 

Based on his experiences in Kenya and Nepal, TPP Associate Richard Holloway argues that community level political economy analyses need to be carried out by local actors who have some “skin in the game” to solve local issues.

The development sector has been too slow to invest in the healthy news media and “information ecosystems” on which healthy societies depend. Nick Benequista (Center for International Media Assistance), Laure-Hélène Piron (The Policy Practice), and Cristina Ordóñez (Trust, Accountability and Inclusion Collaborative) say new OECD principles on supporting media integrity should be a prompt to act in the face of growing manipulation and suppression.

An event was held to discuss the report on 11th June - the full recording can be seen here.

This event aims to explore the crucial role of information ecosystems in development and governance, discuss key findings on the flow of official development assistance and philanthropic funds from three recent funding mappings, and foster a dialogue on addressing funding gaps.
 
Laure-Hélène Piron, TPP Director, will share findings of the study she has completed for the OECD Governance Network analysing official development assistance to media and the information environment since 2002.
 
The full recording of the 11 June 2024 event can be seen here.